The Federation Council has proposed to ban the distribution in the media and on the Internet of photos and videos of shelling sites, drone attacks and troop deployments, except for those provided by the Russian Defense Ministry.
The corresponding bill was drafted by a group of senators from the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, the head of the committee, Andrei Klishas, told TASS.
According to him, in the conditions of war with Ukraine, the data published by citizens become a source of information for the enemy. Ukraine’s armed forces use photo and video materials to identify the location of military equipment, weapons and ammunition, “as well as any potential combat target”.
“For example, the moment of launching a ballistic missile captured on video allows to determine the flight trajectory, and therefore, when hitting the final target, reveals the location of the launcher by mathematical calculation”, the senator explained.
According to the prepared amendments to the laws “On Mass Media” and “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”, the publication of such data will be recognized as a new type of “unlawful, dangerous for society and the state information”. In case of its detection, the Prosecutor General’s Office will be able to request Roskomnadzor to block the resources distributing this data.
Separately, the senators have prepared amendments to introduce fines for such violations. According to Klishas, the punishment for them will be similar to those established for “discrediting” the army. The CAO is proposed to supplement Article 20.35 and provide for fines for citizens from 30 thousand to 50 thousand rubles, for officials – from 100 thousand to 200 thousand rubles, and for legal entities – from 300 thousand to 500 thousand rubles.
Also, the Criminal Code will be supplemented by Article 283.3, which will be applied in case of repeated violation. It provides for a fine from 100 thousand to 300 thousand rubles, compulsory labor for up to three years, arrest for 4-6 months and imprisonment for up to three years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for the same period.
Earlier, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, called on the Russian-appointed head of Crimea to ban the publication on the Internet of photos and videos of work, as well as the location of air defense systems and other defense facilities. “I believe that those who do this [publish photos] are willing or unwilling accomplices of the enemy, regardless of their motives – whether it is a desire to hype, stupidity or malicious intent”, he said.
After that, the representative of the State Council of Crimea Vladimir Konstantinov proposed to introduce fines for violation of the ban: up to 30 thousand rubles – for citizens and up to 300 thousand rubles – gor organizations. “The whole volume of information they [VSU] feed on comes mainly from the public sphere. <…> We just need to put analysts who will review social networks and look for those details that can be used to put all the puzzles of what is happening together”, Konstantinov said on the air of the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
