Russian rock legend Yuri Shevchuk has been fined for criticizing the attack on Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin during a concert in Russia this Tuesday (16).
A court in Ufa (central Russia) found the singer guilty of “public trial aimed at discrediting the use of the Russian Armed Forces” and fined him 50,000 rubles (about US$815).
The 65-year-old singer told her audience in Ufa on May 18, “Youth of Ukraine and Russia,” and said, “We are killing people in Ukraine, why? Are our young people dying in Ukraine, why?” To die “because of our Caesar’s Napoleonic plans”.
Although fined, the Criminal Code provides for recidivism and, in aggravating cases, up to five years’ imprisonment for such offences.
The singer, who did not attend the hearing due to the coronavirus-related quarantine, said in a written statement that he was “always, in every country and always against war”.
Shevchuk, the leader of the rock band DDT, so famous in the disintegrated USSR, has been denouncing Putin’s influence for years, even questioning him at a televised meeting in 2010.
He was also one of the leaders of a large protest movement suppressed by the Kremlin in Russia in 2011-2012.
Shevchuk started his career in the 1980s and gained popularity thanks to his songs against the system.
source: Noticias
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