The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld the arrest of blogger Ilya Remeslo, who will remain in pre-trial detention until at least September 16 in a case over alleged dissemination of 'fakes' about the Russian military. The hearing was held behind closed doors, with listeners and the press admitted only until the reading of the resolution.
'The ruling of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow is left unchanged, the appeals are not satisfied,' the court said. When the judge asked Remeslo whether he understood the decision, he answered affirmatively and added: 'Thank you very much to everyone for your attention to my case. Everything will be fine. Russia will be free.'
The case stems from a post published in March headlined 'Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.' The investigation found in it theses that did not correspond to 'the content of the official position of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.' After that, the blogger was placed in a psychiatric hospital; a month later he was released and continued to publish critical posts about the war and the Russian authorities. In July, Remeslo was arrested; which specific publications formed the basis of the charges was not reported.
Remeslo is known for denunciations of Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). It was after his complaint that a criminal case was opened over 'slander' of veteran Ignat Artemenko. The blogger did not hide that he worked with the presidential administration: in an interview with Ksenia Sobchak, he said that he received 8 million rubles a year through structures of Konstantin Kostin, the former head of the domestic policy directorate.