Sentence of the Romny Interdistrict Court of the Sumy Region, dated December 29, 2021, case No. 585/208/21. Available at https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/102290545

The pre-trial investigation found that the defendant, being an experienced user of the social network Odnoklassniki.Ru , having antipathy towards Ukrainian authorities … had used the personal account created by him on the social network Odnoklassniki.Ru , knowing for certain that as a result of posting publications by users on their personal page, and as a result of clicking “Share” and “Excellent” under publications of other users, such publications automatically become distributed on the social network Odnoklassniki.Ru and visible on the news feed of all his “friends” and “subscribers”.

On May 30, 2020 the defendant clicked “Excellent” under the post of another user on the social network Odnoklassniki.Ru and thus shared the post of the following nature (deleted), and expressed his attitude to this post.

The post in question was automatically distributed through the personal page of the defendant and in the news feed of all his 164 “friends” and “subscribers”, and it became available for viewing by an unlimited number of users of the social network Odnoklassniki.RU.

66 people viewed the post in question and one person “liked” it.

According to the expert linguistic findings of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Investigations the provided Internet publication contains a public call to overthrow the Ukrainian government.

The activities of the defendant were qualified during the pre-trial investigation as the distribution of materials with calls to commit overthrow of government and the constitutional order on the basis Art. 109 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code.

The court approved the plea agreement between the defendant and the prosecutor.

© Yuriy Karlash, English translation, 2022

© Yuriy Karlash, compilation, 2022