Several Russian parliamentarians have amended the legislation to criminalize “discrediting” the country’s armed forces, including “volunteer formations” such as Wagner’s mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“Today, together with my colleagues, I submitted to the State Duma amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses regarding responsibility for discrediting participants in a military special operation,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, president of the lower house of the Russian Federation. of the parliament, TASS reports.

He clarified that the punishments can reach up to 5 years of “corrective” or forced labor or 15 years of imprisonment, stressing that this measure “will protect all those who today, risking their lives, ensure the security of the country and its citizens.” our”.

“Any public dissemination of knowingly false information, as well as public actions aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, volunteer formations, organizations and persons that contribute to the fulfillment of tasks assigned to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, are unacceptable. “, – he added. this.

It seems that the Russian parliament wants to adopt the draft as an emergency, the second reading is scheduled for Thursday, March 2, and it can come to a vote as early as next Tuesday.

Yevgeny Prigozhin personally asked to protect his fighters from “discredit”

The preparation of this draft law was announced by the head of the State Duma committee on security and anti-corruption, Vasyl Piskaryev, at the beginning of February.

At the time, he noted that Russian businessman Yevhen Prigozhin, who founded the Wagner Group in 2014, asked Volodin to find a legislative solution to this “problem.”

In March of last year, shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian parliament passed a well-known law that criminalizes the dissemination of “false information” about the Russian armed forces, although it leaves the possibility for administrative fines in some situations. .

Also, in March 2022, the Russian parliament expanded the scope of this law to all “state bodies” operating abroad.

Wagner’s mercenaries are not officially recognized as part of the Russian armed forces

From what the Russian press has written so far, the new amendments introduced by Russian MPs, in fact, simply extend the scope of this legislation again to give Wagner’s mercenaries “protection” from the spread of “false information” about them and their activities at the front.

The reason the negative accounts of Wagner’s group have so far been allowed in Russia is that it is theoretically a private paramilitary organization founded and supported by Prigozhin, not an official structure of the Russian state.

In fact, Prigozhin mentioned this literally the other day in one of his criticisms of the Russian Ministry of Defense regarding the supply of ammunition to its mercenaries.

Previously, President Vladimir Putin refused to meet the demands of some lawmakers to officially recognize private military companies as participants in the hostilities of the Russian state, but ordered to put the families of mercenaries on an equal footing with soldiers and families of servicemen of the armed forces. when it comes to providing social compensations.

Wagner’s group is not very well appreciated in Russia

The proposals, now before the Russian parliament, come after reports surfaced on Russia’s hugely popular Telegram channels that Wagner’s mercenaries would not be viewed well by the general population after they recruited tens of thousands of prisoners from Russian prisons, some of them were convicted criminals.

Regardless of what they were convicted of, these prisoners are pardoned after completing 6 months of mandatory combat training in Ukraine. At the beginning of January, Prigozhin personally announced the pardon of the first batch of mercenaries recruited from Russian prisons and colonies.

“They fulfilled their contract. They worked with honor and dignity. They were the first. No one in this world works as hard as they do,” Prigozhin told one of the Russian state news agencies, RIA Novosti, on January 5.

On February 9, he announced that his paramilitary group had stopped recruiting from Russian prisons.

Dubbed Putin’s “chef” because of his Kremlin catering firm Concordie, Yevgeny Prigozhin has become one of the central figures in Russia’s war effort in recent months after the Putin administration for years denied any links to paramilitary organizations.

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