Putin Regime Bringing Charges Against Russians for Posts They Made Online Long Ago

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 19 – Internet comments and pictures Russians posted online many years ago are being examined by the Putin regime’s Center E and used as the basis for criminal charges now, even if the posts were in no way criminal when they were made and even if the individual involved has completely changed his positions, Vera Chelishcheva says.

            The Novaya Gazeta journalist who follows legal issues notes that the authorities are quite prepared to dig up these old posts so that they can go after those who are critics of the regime now with whom the Kremlin wants to settle old or new scores  (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/03/19/post-sdal).

            Efforts by those charged on the basis of these old posts to have the charges dropped have failed in the Russian courts; and consequently, any post that any Russian has made in the past at least potentially can be used by the powers that be to impose a criminal sanction if the authorities think that it shows hostility to the Kremlin.

            Chelishcheva gives several examples of such cases, including ones in which the powers now use pictures posted a decade to show that someone supported enemies of the regime or supported gay rights and thus could be charged with promoting homosexuality, not crimes then but crimes now.

            She suggests that any among the roughly one-third of Russians who use social media should be aware of the dangers they are unintentionally putting themselves in with any post and urges those who do put posts up that might be a problem to take them down lest they lead to criminal charges.

            Taking down posts, of course, won’t preclude the possibility that Center E and other agencies of the regime will be able to track them down; but at least it will make the task harder and perhaps these the new repressors to turn to other targets in their search for new victims on the basis of old posts.