The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, and the Federal Security Service (FSB) have refused to initiate a criminal case against Armen Mnatsakanyan, a deputy from Pskov who suggested "killing those who do not want to see or love us." This information was shared by politician Nikolay Kuzmin on his Telegram channel on July 25.
On June 5, Nikolay Kuzmin, a municipal deputy from Pskov, filed appeals with the police, the Investigative Committee, and the FSB, asking them to examine the words of Armen Mnatsakanyan, the head of the United Russia faction in the Pskov Oblast Assembly of Deputies. Kuzmin asserted that Mnatsakanyan's statements contained calls for extremism.
The oppositionist reported that the case ended up in "formal answers." During a telephone conversation, the police mentioned transferring the case to the Centre for Combating Extremism, also known as Centre E, but there have been no updates for a month. The FSB forwarded the related materials to the Investigative Committee, but there was no comprehensive response either.
Consequently, Kuzmin filed complaints against the three organizations in court. After that, the police responded that they would not initiate a case against Mnatsakanyan because his statements did not contain "threats of murder." They also refrained from examining the deputy’s words for signs of public calls for extremism (Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Russian courts regularly use the article on calls for extremism to prosecute individuals who speak against the war in Ukraine and the state’s repression of its own citizens. For example, two days after Mnatsakanyan's notorious statements, Vasily Gorelikov, a supporter of the Dawn political party from Primorye, faced charges of extremism based on certain "old" posts on social media.
