The husband and wife were taken to an investigative department after officers from the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Investigative Committee and the National Guard carried out searches at their home in a suburb of Volgograd on September 10, the regional branches of the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee said.
Investigators say the bloggers filmed a video in which they exercised next to a monument to a girl named Mila on Soldatskoye Pole, a memorial complex dedicated to soldiers of the 62nd Army killed in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Investigative Committee described the content of the video as desecration of a symbol of Russia's military glory and of the memory of the country's defenders.
The bloggers themselves said they recorded the video in February 2020. According to V1.RU, the couple demonstrated how to do crunches correctly and other exercises. The pair said they made the video to promote a healthy lifestyle.
The man, according to the outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti, previously worked in law enforcement: he served in the Federal Drug Control Service and in special forces, was laid off in 2016 and began working as a trainer. He had run his sports channel since 2022 and had about 30,000 subscribers. According to V1.RU, the video contains many exercises filmed outdoors, in a courtyard and at other locations.
The video, V1.RU writes, was posted to TikTok considerably later than it was filmed. Security officers began their check after a denunciation by one of the State Duma deputies from the Volgograd region; the outlet does not name him. After learning of the check, the bloggers deleted the video from the social network. In a conversation with investigators, they admitted guilt and repented of a "stupid act."
A criminal case was opened against the couple under Part 4 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code, which covers the rehabilitation of Nazism. In footage of the search published by the Interior Ministry, officers climb over a fence and enter the house. One of the accused is asked whether he understands why he was detained; he answers that he does not.