The Dorogomilovsky District Court chose a preventive measure in the case of military "fakes" against film critic Ekaterina Barabash. The day before, she was detained in Moscow, where she returned after the Berlinale — the Berlin International Film Festival.
As reported by a correspondent of "Mediazona"** from the courtroom, Barabash is charged with four publications on Facebook in 2022 and 2023. In the first, on March 16, 2022, Ekaterina wrote: "Bastards — they, you see, need Ukraine as a friend, Ukraine — a good neighbor. So you came to foreign land with your tanks, APCs, and future corpses in uniform and with guns? So you, scum, bombed the country, leveled entire cities, killed a hundred children, just shoot peaceful people, keep Mariupol under blockade, deprived millions of people of a normal life, forced to leave for foreign countries? For the sake of friendship with Ukraine?"
The other posts attributed to her — October 6, 2022, June 1 and August 5, 2023 — have been deleted. The investigation claims that she is being checked for involvement in "similar crimes".
Lawyer Mikhail Biryukov asked to attach to the case a statement from Barabash's 96-year-old mother requesting to serve house arrest in her apartment and her discharge summary. Judge Evgenia Gorokhova, who sentenced nurse Olga Menshikh to eight years in a colony in the case of military "fakes", attached all the documents.
The second lawyer, Lev Drozdov, noted that Barabash confessed and gave testimony in the case, she is cooperating with the investigation — provided access codes to the computer. At the same time, house arrest will prevent full care for her mother. In this regard, the defense asked to choose a restriction of certain actions. The investigator and prosecutor opposed a more lenient preventive measure.
Judge Gorokhova placed Ekaterina Barabash under house arrest until April 25.
* The owner of Facebook company Meta is recognized in Russia as an "extremist" organization.
** Recognized in Russia as a "foreign agent".
Photo: Mediazona