Valery Shevchuk

A resident of Crimea. In June 2024, his detention was reported by the "Crimean SMERSH" telegram channel, which helps law enforcement agencies to identify people who speak out against the Russian authorities and the war. In the message, the channel said that Shevchuk "published posts insulting Russia, the army and the president, posted Nazi slogans and called for slaughtering Russians, and denied the territorial integrity of the country". On 19 June 2024, Shevchuk was fined 45,000 rubles under the article on insulting the authorities (part 3 of article 20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences) because of several pictures with statements against Putin. In one of the pictures, Putin had a letter Z drawn on his forehead. On the same day, the court fined Shevchuk 45 thousand rubles under the article on discrediting the Russian army (Article 20.3.3 of the CAO). According to the court ruling, the pictures he published depicted an animal in the uniform of a Russian serviceman and an AFU soldier cutting off the heads of Russian servicemen. At the same time, the court arrested Shevchuk for 13 days under the article on the demonstration of prohibited symbols (part 1 of Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences) because of the Right Sector emblem.

In July 2024, Shevchuk was sentenced to compulsory labour in a theft case (we do not know the details of the case, we have no grounds to consider it politically motivated). Later, a criminal case on calls to extremism was opened against the Crimean: according to the investigation, he called for violence against Russians. There are four episodes in the case. On 25 February 2025, Shevchuk was sentenced to five years and ten days in a general regime colony.

Later it became known that a new case was brought against the Crimean - on the dissemination of disrespectful information about the days of military glory and insulting the feelings of believers. The reason was an anti-war picture, where on 9 May 2022 in Red Square instead of a parade are coffins with the letters V and Z, and some statements about "Orthodox shrines" and Islam. On 23 March 2026, Shevchuk was sentenced to five and a half years in a general regime colony, taking into account his previous sentence.