Talk:Network (Russia)

Automated translation of Russian Articl
=Automated translation of Russian Article= the "Network" case or the "Penza case" is a case of an organization of anarchists and anti-fascists called "Network", whose cells (according to the FSB, supported by the courts) existed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Penza, Omsk and Belarus[3]. Eleven people were arrested in this case, accused of participating in a terrorist community.[4] In February 2020, 7 defendants were sentenced to sentences ranging from 6 to 18 years in prison.[4] The Moscow District Military Court in January 2019 recognized the "Network" as a terrorist organization[5].

Content 1	Arrests and investigations 2	Reports of torture of accused persons 3	Trials and sentencing 3.1	Other charges 4	Public outcry 4.1	Media coverage 4.2	Reaction to sentences 5	Cm. likewise 6	Notes 7	Links Arrests and Nine young people of left-wing convictions from Penza and St. Petersburg were accused of having created a terrorist community that was going to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia, timed to coincide with the presidential elections and the World Cup, in order to destabilize the situation in the country[6].

According to the prosecution, no later than May 2015, Dmitry Pchelintsev and an unidentified person with the call sign "Timofey" - the case against him was separated into separate proceedings - had "an intention to create an interregional terrorist community under the conditional name "Network"", which was supposed to unite Russian anarchists into "combat groups aimed at forcibly changing the constitutional order" and armed seizure of power through attacks on law enforcement agencies. bodies, seizure of weapons depots, attacks on authorities, military recruitment offices and branches of United Russia. To do this, Pchelintsev and "Timofey" gathered a combat group called "5.11" ("November 5") (according to the date of execution in 1907 of the Penza revolutionary Nikolai Pchelintsev[7]).

According to the prosecution, by the summer of 2016, Pchelintsev and other members of the group had developed a "statutory document of an interregional terrorist community", which was called the "Code of Networks". In July, they went to St. Petersburg, where they presented the document to "unidentified local anarchists" and invited them to join the Network. They agreed and created two battle groups: "Field of Mars" and "Jordan SPb", aka "SPb1". Then emissaries from Penza visited Moscow, where a combat group called "MSK" was also created (its members are not identified). In February 2017, according to the FSB, a congress of the "Network" was held in a rented apartment in St. Petersburg, where members of combat groups from different regions discussed their "readiness to fulfill the main goals and objectives of the terrorist community, which are to forcibly change the constitutional order of the Russian Federation by attacking law enforcement officers, military personnel, police buildings, warehouses with weapons, military commissariats, offices of the United Russia party." state institutions with the aim of destabilizing the activities of state authorities of the Russian Federation, influencing their decision-making and forcible change in the constitutional order of the Russian Federation"." In addition, Pchelintsev was accused of trying to set fire to the building of the military enlistment office of the Oktyabrsky and Zheleznodorozhny districts of Penza with the help of a "Molotov cocktail"[8][6].

On October 17, 2017, a student of Penza State University, Yegor Zorin, was detained with drugs in Penza. He testified that his friend Ilya Shakursky and Shakursky's comrades had created a dangerous terrorist organization. Zorin was also accused of participating in a terrorist community, but later he was transferred to house arrest, on September 4, 2018, the prosecution against Zorin under the article on the terrorist community was terminated, under the article on drug possession he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment conditionally[7][9].

Following Zorin's testimony in October 2017, Ilya Shakursky, Vasily Kuksov, Dmitry Pchelintsev and Andrei Chernov were arrested.[10] Arman Sagynbayev was taken from St. Petersburg to Penza and also placed in a detention center.[11] The defendants alleged that they were tortured, during which they were forced to memorize testimony that they were members of the terrorist community "Network"[12]. For example, Shakursky stated in court that he had been beaten, tortured with electric shocks and threatened with rape; in addition, his ex-girlfriend, he said, was threatened with criminal proceedings if she did not obtain a confession from Shakursky and the refusal of a new lawyer.[13]

On January 23, 2018, anti-fascist and programmer Viktor Filinkov disappeared in St. Petersburg.[14] Two days later, he was found and the press service of the courts wrote that he had been arrested and pleaded guilty.[15] Filinkov later retracted his testimony, saying that it had been made under torture.[16]

On January 25, after FSB officers searched the apartment, Igor Shishkin, a resident of St. Petersburg, was detained while walking his dog.[17] The Dzerzhinsky Court of St. Petersburg arrested Shishkin on the same charges as Filinkov.[18] Investigative actions in St. Petersburg were authorized by one of the district courts of Penza.[19]

On April 11, Yulia Boyarshinov from St. Petersburg was charged with participation in the "Network" community, as well as with illegal possession of explosives.[20] According to OVD-Info, FSB officers demanded that Boyarshinov "speak, threatening to "make it worse."[21]

On July 5, two more defendants in the case were arrested in Penza, they were accused of preparing for the production or sale of drugs on a large scale (paragraph "d" of Part 4 of Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code with the application of Part 3 of Article 30 of the Criminal Code)[22].

All those arrested in the Seti case were interested in airsoft and conducted training, which, according to one of the lawyers, was presented by the prosecution as evidence of "illegal mastery of the skills of survival in the forest and first aid".[6]

According to FSB charges, Vasily Kuksov, Dmitry Pchelintsev and Ilya Shakursky in Penza were found to have weapons during the search, and Arman Sagynbayev in St. Petersburg had a bucket of aluminum powder and ammonium nitrate (the investigation insisted that these were components of improvised explosive devices).[23] However, all of them, except Sagynbayev, stated that the weapons had been planted on them; from the testimony of witnesses in court, it follows that FSB officers were the first to enter Shakursky's apartment during the search (the witnesses were invited only seven minutes later), and Kuksov's car, in which the gun was found, was open before the search.[23]

Initially, most of the defendants testified about their alleged criminal activities, but later they refused them, saying that the FSB officers received this testimony from them as a result of torture (including electric shocks) or the threat of torture.[6]

On July 25, 2018, it became known that the defendants in the "Network" case Filinkov, Boyarshinov and Shishkin were taken from the pre-trial detention center of the Leningrad region and St. Petersburg to Yaroslavl[24]. Filinkov and Boyarshinov were then transferred to Nizhny Novgorod, while Shishkin was left in Yaroslavl.[25]

Reports of torture of accused In January-February 2018, after the arrest of Filinkov and Shishkin, members of the St. Petersburg PMC Yana Teplitskaya and Ekaterina Kosarevskaya conducted "checks of the fact and circumstances of torture against Viktor Filinkov and Igor Shishkin", visiting the defendants in the detention center. Human rights activists said that there were burns from electric shockers and traces of beatings in prisoners. In Igor Shishkin, doctors diagnosed a fracture of the lower wall of the orbit, numerous hematomas and abrasions[26]:

Not being the investigative bodies and not being able to conduct a full-fledged investigation, as well as not having a statement of torture from Igor Dmitrievich Shishkin, nevertheless, the members of the PMC consider the stated in this conclusion sufficient to assert the fact of torture by the FSB officers of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region in relation to both arrested. — Conclusion of the PMC working group on appeals about torture to the FSB of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region[27] In April 2018, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation refused to open a criminal case on the complaint of one of the defendants in the case, Viktor Filinkov, arrested in St. Petersburg, who accused FSB officers of using torture. The IC officers did not find any violations in the actions of the FSB operatives and "believed" in the version of the use of a stun gun to Filinkov when trying to escape from the bus[28]. On August 16, 2018, the Leningrad District Military Court refused to satisfy Viktor Filinkov's complaint about the refusal to initiate a criminal case of torture.[25]

In May 2018, the Investigative Committee also refused to open a criminal case on the complaint of torture of St. Petersburg resident Ilya Kapustin, who was interrogated as a witness in the case. According to the investigator, some of the injuries on Kapustin's body were caused by the lawful use of force by FSB officers (Kapustin allegedly also tried to escape during transportation), and traces in the groin and stomach appeared not from blows with a stun gun, but "as a result of insect bites"[29].

Arman Sagynbayev told the court that he was tortured with electric shocks when he was taken from St. Petersburg to Moscow immediately after his detention (in November 2017). According to him, "It was not only physical and not only pain. It [was] torment, suffering."[30] In May 2019, the online publication Mediazona published a detailed story about the torture of Dmitry Pchelintsev.[31]

On May 22, 2019, Dmitry Pchelintsev testified at a meeting of the Volga District Military Court in Penza, during which he spoke in detail about the torture he had suffered.

This is October 28, the first day of my stay in jail. I actually had to get into the quarantine that's going on in the Titanic hull. I was taken to cell 5.2, I was locked up there. Two minutes later, about six, maybe seven FSB officers came in. Two of them were in "cartoon" uniforms used by FSB officers. I also recognized them as people who had escorted me before. And people in the "citizen", who, in fact, are operatives. I was told, "Undress." This is the first time I've been in this situation, I had no idea of anything — maybe some other inspections or whatever — after all, I'm clean. I undressed. I was told, "Sit on the bench." I sat down on a bench, and after they started to tie my feet to the bench with duct tape, I realized that... well, like, write gone. We took out a dynamo from our bag and put it on the table. All employees wore balaclavas and medical gloves. I had my hands wrapped behind my back, I was in just my underpants, and I had my feet tied to the bench with duct tape. An employee named Alexander cleaned the wires with a stationery knife and wound them to my big toes.[32]

According to Mikhail Fedotov, former head of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, even during his tenure in office, he personally appealed to the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, with a request to investigate the use of torture against the defendants in the "Network" case, but his appeal did not lead to anything[33].

As of July 2019, no criminal cases had been initiated in connection with reports of torture.[34]

In October 2021, Maxim Ivankin stated that he had confessed out of fear for his life and health: while in the prison hospital of the Vladimir colony No. 3, prisoners loyal to the administration beat him, demanding that he memorize the text of the confession[35].

Trials and sentences Igor Shishkin pleaded guilty, his case in January 2019 was considered in a special order by the Moscow District Military Court at a field session in St. Petersburg and sentenced Shishkin to 3.5 years in prison[36][37].

On March 20, 2019, the Moscow District Military Court began to consider the case against Yuli Boyarshinov and Viktor Filinkov. The hearings were held in the 224th Garrison Military Court of St. Petersburg, while the judges participated in them via video link from Moscow. Boyarshinov pleaded guilty and filed a motion for a special hearing of his case. However, the court rejected his request. At the same time, Boyarshinov stated that he categorically did not share the ideology of terrorism with violent methods of overthrowing state authorities and said that he had undergone military training for a possible struggle against radical nationalist groups that are preparing to seize power in Russia[38][39].

Filinkov pleaded not guilty.[40] On May 15, at this trial, prosecution witness Yegor Zorin was questioned, whose "guilty plea" was the reason for the opening of the case.[41]

On May 14, 2019, the Volga District Military Court began to consider in Penza the case against Maxim Ivankin, Vasily Kuksov, Mikhail Kulkov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, Arman Sagynbayev, Andrei Chernov and Ilya Shakursky. None of them pleaded guilty.[42]

At the trial in Penza in June 2019, a person under the pseudonym "Kabanov" testified as a "secret" prosecution witness. Ilya Shakursky stated that this man was known to him as Vlad Dobrovolsky, a former neo-Nazi who tried to start provocative conversations with Shakursky (about making an explosive device, etc.) Students of Penza State University, when Shakursky's acquaintances showed them a photo of "Dobrovolsky", recognized him as a student of PSU Vlad Gresko[43][44]. Vlad Gresko was a key witness in the case of illegal possession of weapons, which in 2015 was investigated by the FSB in the Penza region. He started conversations on provocative topics, asked leading questions, secretly recorded all his conversations and transmitted to the FSB materials that became the basis of the accusation.[45] Also, as "secret" witnesses for the prosecution at this trial under the pseudonyms "Lisin", "Volkov" and "Zaitsev", the cellmates of the accused, with whom the defendants allegedly talked about their plans, testified. "Volkov" was allegedly a cellmate of the accused Pchelintsev, but Pchelintsev denied this.[43]

In the case there is information that Pchelintsev allegedly created a terrorist community in 2013, but at that time he was serving in the army. When this became clear, the materials began to indicate that the community was created "no later than 2015", all the accused joined it. But that year in the army there was another defendant in the case - Maxim Ivankin. Pchelintsev said in court: "The most "mysterious unknown circumstance" of this case is the congress of the Network in St. Petersburg in 2017. The event that the St. Petersburg FSB is trying to present as a congress was held on February 2-4, and none of the defendants were there except me. And the event that the Penza FSB is trying to put up by the congress was not even an event, but was a visit in March, and none of the accused were there either. All the words about the seizure and change of power were written by a person who does not understand this. " On the pistol found in Kuksov's car, there are no fingerprints and biological traces of one of the defendants in the case, there are also no traces of grenades found in Pchelintsev's car. Pchelintsev and Kuksov said that their cars had been opened in advance, on the lock of one of them there were traces of mechanical damage. Witnesses confirmed in court that the cars were not locked. Another witness, who was present at the search of Ilya Shakursky's apartment, said that an FSB officer first entered the apartment, and then after a while the witnesses were invited inside and informed about the discovery of a fire extinguisher, considering it an improvised explosive device. The gun, found in shakursky's house, the operatives removed from under the sofa. but there was not a speck of dust on the weapon, nor were Shakursky's fingerprints. The file with the charter of the "Network" on Shakursky's computer appeared after his detention. The lawyers found out that after the seizure of Shakursky's laptop on October 18, 2017 and before his inspection on February 20, 2018, the contents of the computer were amended at least twice - on October 30 and November 1, 2017 [46].

In his last statement, Ilya Shakursky said that the prosecution provided the case materials without real evidence of the guilt of the defendants and thus showed "contempt of court." According to him, the FSB officers did not try to prove the key part of the accusation about the methods and places of attacks on law enforcement officers; according to Shakursky, it remained unclear exactly how the "Network" planned to influence the constitutional order of Russia.[47] Maxim Ivankin said in his last word that all the evidence was falsified, the investigator was unqualified, and the case was politically motivated.[48]

On February 10, 2020, the Volga District Military Court (presiding by Judge Yuri Klubkov) found seven defendants guilty and sentenced[49]:

Dmitry Pchelintsev (organization of a terrorist community, weapons storage) - 18 years in prison; Ilya Shakursky (organization of a terrorist community, storage of weapons and explosives) - 16 years in prison and a fine of 50 thousand rubles; Andrei Chernov (participation in the activities of a terrorist community, article on drugs) - 14 years in prison; Maxim Ivankin (participation in the activities of a terrorist community, attempted sale of drugs on a particularly large scale) - 13 years in prison; Mikhail Kulkov (participation in the activities of a terrorist community, attempted sale of drugs on a large scale) - 10 years in prison; Vasily Kuksov (participation in the activities of a terrorist community, possession of weapons) - 9 years in prison; Arman Sagynbayev (participation in the activities of a terrorist community) - 6 years in prison. Dmitry Pchelintsev was acquitted of charges of attempting to set fire to the military recruitment office.[50]

The verdict reads in part:[51][52]

It appears that the social actions carried out by the defendants, such as "food instead of bombs", "vegan days" and others, were carried out against the background of information posters with inscriptions criticizing the state, which spends money on weapons, and not to help people. At the same time, during the judicial investigation, all the defendants and defense witnesses testified that these actions were carried out freely and without restrictions, sometimes in coordination with the authorities. Thus, the statements of the defendants, taking into account their non-confessional position and disagreement with the accusation about the alleged fabrication of a criminal case for political reasons, were not confirmed, and therefore the court recognizes them as far-fetched and untrue.

The court decided to destroy the material evidence in the case, in particular, textbooks on the shooting case, the book by Karl Marx, various anarchist publications.[53]

Lawyers for all seven convicts appealed the verdict.[54]

Arman Sagynbayev was diagnosed with HIV infection[53], Vasily Kuksov with tuberculosis[55].

On February 26, 2020, the trial of Viktor Filinkov and Yulia Boyarshinov resumed in St. Petersburg. The case was heard in St. Petersburg, but by the Second Western District Military Court, which is located in Moscow. The trial was interrupted in the summer of 2019 and was resumed after the verdicts at the trial in Penza.[56] On February 28, the court questioned Ilya Shakursky and Maxim Ivankin, convicts in Penza, via video link. Both spoke of FSB torture and non-involvement in the preparation of an armed rebellion. Shakursky said that he could see Filinkov and Boyarshinov at concerts and other events, but did not communicate closely with them. The court also discussed the so-called "Code of Networks", or "Regulations". The investigation considered it a program document, a plan to seize power. But it turned out to be a 33-page set of entries on topics ranging from discussions of threesomes to recipes. Experts came to the conclusion that the "Vault" was heterogeneous and found it difficult to give it a meaningful description[57][58].

On June 22, in St. Petersburg, a court sentenced Viktor Filinkov and Yulia Boyarshinov, both of whom were found guilty, and Filenkov pleaded not guilty, and Hawthornoff admitted that he had met with other activists and attended special trainings and studied regulatory documents and programs, but did not agree with the charge of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order.[59]. As a result, Filinkov received 7 years in prison, Boyarshinov due to a partial transaction with the investigation - 5 years and 6 months. The verdict was negatively received by social activists and supporters of the detainees, who staged protests outside the courthouse.[60]

On October 20, the Military Court of Appeal upheld the verdict of the Volga District Military Court.[61]

Other charges In November 2019, six female activists who knew Arman Sagynbayev accused him of rape, intentionally infecting them with HIV, and having sex with a minor.[62][63] In February 2020, the Meduza website published an article that spoke about the involvement of Pchelintsev, Shakursky, Chernov and Ivankin in the drug trade in Penza, in the murder of Artem Dorofeev in the Ryazan region and the disappearance of Ekaterina Levchenko.[64] Levchenko's parents asked the police to verify this information. In March, an acquaintance of the defendants from Penza, Alexei Poltavets, who left for Ukraine, said that he killed Dorofeev, and Ivankin killed Levchenko. According to Poltavets, they were killed so that they would not tell the FSB about the drug trafficking of Penza residents.[65] At the same time, the involvement of the above-mentioned defendants in terrorism and illegal trafficking in explosives in both cases was denied.

On March 4, 2020, the body of a woman, presumably Ekaterina Levchenko, was found near the village of Lopukhi, Ryazan Oblast.[66] On March 6, the remains were transferred for examination to the internal affairs center of the Ryazan region.[67]

Public outcry

Protest inscription on the sidewalk in Moscow In May 2018, a rally of solidarity with those arrested in the "Network" case was held in the Ovsyannikovsky Garden in St. Petersburg, coordinated with the authorities.[68]

In July 2018, the Russian delegation, during a meeting of the UN Committee against Torture, ignored the question of Special Rapporteur Claude Heller about reports of torture of defendants and a witness in this case.[69]

According to a number of human rights activists[70] and journalists,[71] the criminal case was falsified and the evidence was fabricated in flagrant violation of the rights of those arrested.

The parents of the defendants in the "Network" case created an informal organization "Parent Network", the purpose of which is to fight for the rights of the defendants in the case[72]. In particular, they appealed to the Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova with a request to investigate cases of torture against their children and prevent their use in the future course of the investigation.[73]

The appeal of the relatives of the detainees in Penza and St. Petersburg to the society and the authorities[74] and the statement of public figures in support of the prisoners in the "Network" case were also published.[75]

On October 28, 2018, demonstrations were held in Moscow, St. Petersburg and a number of other cities in support of the defendants in the "Network" case and the "New Greatness" case. The authorities refused to coordinate these actions in the places declared by the organizers. In Moscow, up to 1500 people gathered on Lubyanka Square. 14 people were detained. In St. Petersburg, the action was held on Nevsky Prospekt, at least 40 people were detained. Actions were also held in Penza, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Irkutsk[76][77][78][79].

On October 31, 2018, in Arkhangelsk, 17-year-old Mikhail Zhlobitsky detonated an improvised explosive device, entering the building of the regional FSB department. He died on the spot, three employees of the department were injured. 15 minutes before the explosion, a message appeared in the telegram channel "Speeches of the Rebel" under a nickname that does not coincide with the real name of the deceased that he was going to make an explosion: "Since the FSB ******* fabricates cases and tortures people, I decided to go for it." Zhlobitsky showed an interest in anarchism. Some journalists have linked Zhlobitsky's terrorist attack to the Seti case.[80][81]

On December 11, 2018, during a meeting of the Human Rights Council, journalist Nikolai Svanidze and the head of the Human Rights Council Mikhail Fedotov informed Russian President V. Putin that torture with stun guns was used against the defendants in the "Network" criminal case, and the security forces launched provocations against the defendants in the "New Greatness" case. Putin said that he was not informed about the affairs of the "New Greatness" and the "Network": "We need to look. Are you saying that they were engaged in some kind of gaponism there? This is the first time I've ever heard of this" and added that "it certainly needs to be sorted out."[82]

In April 2019, human rights activist Lev Ponomarev, one of the first to speak in defense of the defendants in the case, posted a petition on the Internet platform Change.org demanding to stop the "case of the Network", as well as to investigate the facts of torture. The petition was signed by Andrei Makarevich, Liya Akhedzhakova, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Natalia Fateeva, Garry Bardin and many others.[83][84]

Amnesty International demanded the dismissal of the case and the release of the defendants, arguing that the terrorist organization "Network" never existed.[85]

Media coverage In April 2018, the NTV channel showed a documentary about the case of the "Network" "Dangerous Network", in which Viktor Filinkov's wife Alexandra Aksyonova was called the "main ideologist" of the "terrorist community" and it is reported that she allegedly came to Russia from Ukraine to create a "radical movement on the model of the Ukrainian "Right Sector". The film was released shortly after the statements of the defendants in the case of torture[86].

In June 2018, rt journalists came to investigate the circumstances of the case on an editorial assignment, but the defendants refused to communicate with them. Lawyer Oleg Zaitsev reported on attempts by FSIN officers to persuade Pchelintsev and Shakursky to give an interview to this media outlet. Neither before this incident, nor after it, on the RT website, this process was not mentioned, at the same time, its press service reacted to the accusations against it as follows: "There was no coercion to interview from the RT television channel. We also draw the attention of the "opposition" media that it is worth already deciding on the position: are you outraged by the fact that RT is not doing anything on investigations of possible torture in prisons, or what is it doing?" [87]

NTV released a documentary film "Dangerous Network - 2", in which they call the defendants in the case terrorists who wanted to kill hundreds of people. Human rights activists and lawyers defending the accused are accused by journalists of the state TV channel of "grant-eating" and working for Western countries in order to discredit Russia. Most of the material was taken from the first NTV film, such as the accusation against Shakursky by his first lawyer Mikhail Grigoryan (for which he received a reprimand from the local bar association because of their unethical nature). The only new speaker of the program was political scientist Alexei Martynov, who equated the defenders of the defendants in the case with terrorists, in 2015 claimed that the Americans organized a terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in order to harm Russia[88].

On February 20, 2020, the lawyer of the defendant in the case of Ilya Shakursky, Sergei Morgunov, announced the visit of his client in the Penza detention center by journalists of the state TV channel "Russia-24". According to Shakursky, he was taken to the investigative office of waiting journalists who began to ask questions about the "manifesto". The anti-fascist refused to speak to them without his lawyer, according to him, state journalists who were absent from the consideration of the manifesto in court learned about the case only now because of the great resonance.[89]

Reaction to sentences

Picketers in Yekaterinburg with posters against the verdict in the case of "Networks", March 6, 2020 In front of the building of the Volga District Military Court in Penza in February 2020, during the "Network" trial, single pickets were held[90]. On February 10, when the guilty verdict was announced, there were about 40 listeners in the courtroom. The judges left the hall to shouts of "Shame!" This slogan was picked up by another 50 people who did not have enough space in the hall, and they stood behind the doors, in the foyer of the first floor. After the announcement of the verdict, several dozen people picketed the central streets of Penza. The protest lasted all day on February 10 and ended late in the evening near the building of the pre-trial detention center, where the convicts are being held.[91] On the evening of February 11, four activists were detained in Penza on charges of applying graffiti "Do not forgive the cause of the Network".[92] In Moscow, pickets were also held near the FSB building on Lubyanka Square on February 10 in support of convicts.[93]

The head of the HRC, Valery Fadeyev, refused to comment on the verdict, citing his status as an "employee of the presidential administration."[94] At the same time, he announced the readiness of the HRC to consider the applications of convicts, their relatives or lawyers, "if they apply for protection."

On February 12, 2020, Russian scientists published an open letter in support of those convicted in the "Network case"[95][96]. In response to it, on February 13, the press secretary of the President of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin had instructed to conduct an audit of this case.[97]

On February 14, 2020, human rights activists Lev Ponomarev, Valery Borshchev and Svetlana Gannushkina appealed to Vladimir Putin with a request for a meeting to talk about the case of the "Network". In their opinion, the case of the "Network" indicates the revival of "practices of the Great Terror" in Russia.[98]

On February 17, 2020, 13 independent bookstores from 9 Russian cities, including Phalanster (Moscow), closed for one day, and their representatives went to single pickets in protest against the verdict.[99]

Also, more than a hundred writers, poets, journalists, translators, literary critics, publicists, publishers and other cultural figures and public figures spoke in support of the defendants in the case.[100] A number of artists, art historians, gallerists, and museum workers condemned the "practice of torture by the special services."[101] Representatives of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia in the appeal called the sentences of the defendants in the case "ultimatum acts of intimidation that break people's destinies for the sake of the current political agenda"[102]. An appeal in connection with the persecution of young people was expressed by animators and animators.[103] More than a thousand teachers signed a letter published by the interregional trade union of education workers "Teacher", in which they indicated that the case was fabricated and was used to intimidate their own people.[104] Hundreds of students signed an open letter on the website of the student magazine DOXA, in which they expressed doubts about the arguments accepted by the court.[105] Several hundred psychologists expressed support for the defendants in the case, signing a letter in which they demanded to review the case and abandon the practice of torture.[106]

The verdict was condemned by the Association of Independent Public Observers, noting that "the basis of the accusation was largely based on testimony given under torture."[107] Dozens of municipal deputies of St. Petersburg appealed to the Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov with a request to "bring a protest against the decision of the Volga District Military Court in order to cancel the guilty verdict and make an acquittal," as well as to bring to justice all those who used torture and falsified evidence.[108] The chairman of the Just Russia party, Sergei Mironov, sent appeals to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Supreme Court regarding the "Network" case, pointing to the possible use of torture by law enforcement officers in relation to the accused.[109]

TV presenter and former presidential candidate of the Russian Federation Ksenia Sobchak claimed that there was evidence in the case materials of the guilt of the defendants. She paid special attention to a certain "correspondence attached to the case.[110]

On February 25, 2020, 154 municipal deputies of St. Petersburg signed an appeal to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov with a request to cancel the verdict in the "Network" case and investigate all the circumstances of the fabrication of the case and torture. They also asked the prosecutor's office to drop the charges against Viktor Filinkov and Yulia Boyarshinov.[111]

On June 22, 2020, about 30 people were detained near the courthouse in St. Petersburg after the announcement of the verdict against Filinkov and Boyarshin, including Boyarshinov's wife Yana Sakhipova[112][113][60] and a member of the Public Supervisory Commission of St. Petersburg Yana Teplitskaya[114]. According to Novaya Gazeta, a number of police officers did not have breastplates in violation of the law.[1 CristianChirita (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2022 (UTC)