Shpak Aleksandr Konstantinovich

In August 2024, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case against blogger Alexander Shpak for desecration of the state emblem or state flag of the Russian Federation. The reason for the criminal prosecution was a video published on August 14, 2024, in which the blogger burns his Russian passport and calls himself a person without a homeland and without a flag. Today I am finishing with everything that connects me to Russia, the blogger says in the video, after which he stomps on the burnt passport with his foot. After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the blogger left the country and moved to Turkey. He currently lives in Montenegro. In January 2024, the blogger was put on the wanted list and placed under house arrest in absentia in a criminal case on the dissemination of fakes about the army. In July 2023, a criminal case was opened in Moscow for the public dissemination of "fakes" about the Russian army on the basis of political hatred against blogger and bodybuilder Alexander Shpak. The reason for the criminal prosecution was a three-minute Instagram reel by Shpak, which he filmed after the breach of the Kakhovka HPP on June 6, 2023. Shpak accused Russian military personnel of destroying the dam, calling them 'rashists' in the video. Spak is critical of the Russian authorities and speaks out against the war in Ukraine. In 2022, the blogger left Russia. In January 2024, it became known that the Ministry of Internal Affairs put Shpak on the wanted list. 19 January 2024, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow issued an in absentia arrest warrant for Shpak. 5 September 2024, a man in a robe Boris Safarin of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow found Alexander Shpak guilty and sentenced him to 8 years of imprisonment in a general regime correctional colony. The court also deprived him of the right to administer websites on the Internet for 4 years.