The Sormovsky District Prosecutor's Office of Nizhny Novgorod appealed to the court with an appellate submission, requesting a harsher punishment for students Kirill Smirnov and Egor Starshinov, convicted for military «fakes», reported SOTAvision*.
According to the prosecution, the «evidence presented to the court did not receive the necessary legal assessment», and the punishment assigned to the young men was «too lenient», since the «crime» they committed falls into the category of serious offenses and is «aimed against public safety».
In November 2023, Nizhny Novgorod high school students Egor Starshinov and Kirill Smirnov were held administratively liable for «discrediting» the army. The reason was a report by the director of Nizhny Novgorod Lyceum No. 82, Nina Govorova, who reported that a video featuring Starshinov and Smirnov was sent to the school's email. In the video, they were sitting in the kitchen discussing Ukraine, Russia, school teachers, and allegedly criticizing the Russian army. The teenagers posted the video on a Telegram channel with 26 subscribers.
After drawing up an administrative protocol, law enforcement sent the video for linguistic examination, which revealed that the «disseminated information is deliberately false». As soon as the teenagers became adults, a criminal case was initiated against them under the article on military «fakes». In April, the Sormovsky court of Nizhny Novgorod sentenced the students to 2.5 years in a colony.
«I believe that the punishment assigned to Smirnov K. and Starshinov E. is unjust due to excessive leniency and cannot ensure the goal of their correction while preventing the commission of new crimes and restoring social justice», — stated in the prosecutor Belova's appellate complaint.
The prosecution asks to annul the 2.5-year sentence, send the criminal case for a new trial in the same court but with a different composition, and to toughen the punishment for both Nizhny Novgorod residents.
* Recognized as a «foreign agent» in Russia.
Photo: channel «By the way»