A woman walks past a billboard advertising contract service in St. Petersburg, Russia, 14 January 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANATOLY MALTSEV

A court in the city of Kurchatov in the partially occupied Russian Kursk region has fined a local woman 30,000 rubles (€325) for “discrediting” the Russian army, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Friday.

Lyudmila Leonova, 39, who said her son was a professional soldier currently fighting in Ukraine, was charged for comments she left on a post in the group Overheard in Kurchatov on popular Russian social media platform VK, according to the local court’s press service.

Leonova was fined for a post where she wrote that “young guys are being put in the ground when they shouldn’t be”, she told Mediazona, adding that she simply wanted to “draw attention to problems” in Russia but was instead fined more than her monthly salary of 28,000 rubles (€300).

“All I can do is smile. This is Russia. There was nothing criminal in my words. All I did was tell the truth. It turns out you’re not even allowed to think about that in our country. Everyone’s so squeaky clean,” Leonova said.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Russia rushed through two wartime censorship laws introducing fines and prison sentences for “discrediting” the Russian army and disseminating “false information” about the military, which have been used to target dissenting voices in the press and on social media. Both laws were ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) earlier this month.

Fighting continues in Russia’s western Kursk region, which has been partially occupied by Ukraine since its surprise border incursion into Russia in August.