Volkov Aleksey Andreevich

A criminal case was opened against Alexei Volkov in Volgograd no later than March 2017. He was charged with publicly desecrating a symbol of Russia’s military glory.

According to investigators, on March 20, 2017, Volkov—who served as the coordinator of Alexei Navalny’s Volgograd headquarters and as the administrator of the “Navalny’s Team Volgograd” on the social network VKontakte, posted an image of the sculpture “The Motherland Calls!” in the group, with its face and hand painted green. The prosecution alleges that the defendant used this image to draw attention to the opening of the campaign headquarters.

From August 31 to September 25, 2017, the defendant was under house arrest. Later, the pretrial restriction was changed to a written pledge not to leave the city and to behave appropriately.

On March 14, 2019, the Volgograd Regional Court found Alexei Volkov guilty and sentenced him to a fine of 250,000 rubles. The court reduced the fine to 200,000 rubles because Volkov had been under house arrest during the investigation. The court ordered the confiscation of the defendant’s “Apple MacBook Air” laptop.

On June 5, 2019, the Judicial Chamber for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation amended the verdict. The court acquitted Alexei Volkov of the charge due to the expiration of the statute of limitations; the remainder of the court’s decision remained unchanged.