The court fined a resident of Arkhangelsk for a photo of the Victory Parade

The Arkhangelsk court found a 59-year-old man guilty of publicly displaying Nazi symbols and sentenced him to pay a fine of one thousand rubles.

Mikhail Listov posted on his VKontakte page a photo of the 1945 Victory Day Parade, where Soviet soldiers hold lowered banners of Nazi Germany in their hands.

Rosbalt reported that in mid-January, an investigator called Mikhail Listov and invited him to the department because of the published photo and propaganda of Nazi symbols. In the department, the man was offered to get acquainted with the case materials — screenshots from the page on the social network. After a second meeting at the police station, Listov was already taken to court.

The man categorically refused to admit guilt and pointed out errors in the case file: it says that the photo was published on December 5, 2017, although he posted the photo in 2016 on the eve of Victory Day. According to him, he did this to remind friends about military events, and the image itself was repeatedly found in history textbooks.

The man himself is sure that he is being pressured because of his political views. Mikhail has been an oppositionist since 1991 and has openly expressed his position since 2014.