Ilia Petrov

According to the court, “On 9 September 2022, no later than 16:13, Ilia Petrov, during an online correspondence with an unidentified person, received from that person an image of T.S.A. dressed in the uniform of an SS officer from the Second World War. Fully aware that this image was not a real photograph but had been created using special computer software by overlaying a photograph of the victim with the tunic of an SS officer bearing Nazi symbols, at approximately 16:13 that day, while at his residence at <address>, the convicted individual, acting out of personal animosity and understanding the false nature of the information he was distributing, intentionally published this image of the victim in SS-officer uniform as a comment under a post titled Honest Journalist, relating to T.S.A., in the online community Overheard in Yuryev-Polsky on the social network VKontakte.” According to the online media Chesnok, “The resident of Yuryev-Polsky, Ilya Petrov, developed animosity toward journalist Sergei Trubkin because the latter had previously published posts about bullying of a child in a summer camp—although Petrov’s surname was not mentioned in those posts. Wanting to discredit the journalist, the young man contacted a certain Timur through a now-blocked messenger; Timur had drawn attention to Trubkin because of his statements about Stalin. Timur himself, as stated in the magistrate’s court verdict, told Petrov that he lived in Ukraine.” Sergei Trubkin was “dressed” in a Nazi uniform in the photo collage. On 9 September 2022, the image was posted in the local Overheard group. Some time later, in order to avoid criminal prosecution, the collage was altered: the “Ukrainian” Timur replaced the SS symbols with the letters Z and V, and Petrov updated the post.