On February 9, the head of the Safe Internet League, Yekaterina Mizulina, announced that a criminal defamation case had been opened against the blogger.
On November 8, 2022, Nikolai Lebedev posted a video on TikTok in which he tried to imitate the actions of a Russian soldier throwing grenades. The director of the Safe Internet League turned to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to check this video. In her opinion, the blogger’s actions were aimed at discrediting the Russian army (Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
On November 9, Nikolai Lebedev was detained and subsequently convicted, but not for discrediting the RF Armed Forces, but for violating the rules for entering Russia. On November 11, RIA Novosti published a video of Nekoglay’s apology, in which he stated that he felt like an “animal” and called the video a “big mistake.” On November 24, the blogger was deported to Moldova, of which he is a citizen. After that, Nikolai Lebedev said that in Moscow he was beaten and forcibly shaved his head. He also said that he was ready to raise money for military drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On February 9, Ekaterina Mizulina reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs filed Nekoglay under the article on libel (128.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) “in connection with the spread of outright lies and slander about my activities and the work of the Safe Internet League, as well as the ensuing death threats against me.” Nikolai Lebedev, in turn, told Kommersant that he appealed to the ICR and the prosecutor’s office with a demand to deal with the beating of him by the police prior to his deportation.
