LONDON (Reuters) – Ilya Ponomaryov, a Russian former lawmaker who now opposes the Kremlin from exile in Ukraine, is under investigation for spreading false information about the Russian army, TASS news agency cited a Moscow court as saying on Tuesday.
It said investigators had requested his “arrest in absentia”, which effectively makes him a wanted man and means he would face certain detention if he returned to Russia.
Under a law passed eight days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the “public dissemination of deliberately false information” about the armed forces is punishable by fines or, in the most serious cases, up to 15 years in jail.
A Moscow district councillor, Alexei Gorinov, was jailed for seven years in July after being convicted of that offence. Two other opposition figures, Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, are in pre-trial detention in similar cases.
Last week another critic of the war, former Yekaterinburg mayor Yevgeny Roizman, was charged with discrediting the armed forces after describing Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as a war and an invasion. That offence is punishable by up to three years in lesser cases, or five in more serious ones.
Ponomaryov has come under pressure in Russia since becoming the only lawmaker in the 450-strong lower chamber of parliament, the Duma, to vote against the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
In a post on the messaging app Telegram, he made light of the latest development, saying it would be the second time he had been arrested in absentia.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
