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Court places blogger behind Moscow Calling Telegram channel under house arrest

The defendant said at a court hearing that he knew he had committed a crime; however, he disagreed with the wording of the charge

MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. Moscow’s Cheryomushkinsky District Court has placed Andrey Kurshin, the blogger behind the Moscow Calling Telegram channel who is charged with spreading fake news about the Russian Armed Forces, under house arrest, a TASS correspondent reported.

"The court hereby rejects the investigation’s request to take Kurshin into custody and rules that he should be placed under house arrest," a court official said.

The defendant said at a court hearing that he knew he had committed a crime; however, he disagreed with the wording of the charge. "I used to be a military serviceman myself and I still maintain contact with many service members. I don’t hate them, which is what the investigation has charged me with," Kurshin told the court.

The court’s decision has not taken effect yet and can be appealed within three days.

Kurshin is charged with committing a crime under paragraph (d) of Article 207.3.2 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Public Dissemination of Deliberately False Information About the Use of the Russian Armed Forces"). According to investigators, he published several posts on his Telegram channel between September and November 2022, which, as psychological and linguistic analysis has shown, contained deliberately false information about the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. The detainee is facing a prison term of up to ten years. The Moscow Calling Telegram channel, which has over 86,000 subscribers, covers current events, including the situation in the special military operation zone and drone attacks in Russian regions.