According to the materials of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), three more pro-Kremlin Internet agitators from different regions of Ukraine received actual prison terms.
Three pro-Russian Internet propagandists were punished
The attackers praised Putin and supported the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine. They also glorified the Russian occupation groups and justified their war crimes.
The SSU press service reported about it.
In addition, propagandists popularized Russian Gauleiters, who spread the Moscow regime in the temporarily captured part of Ukraine.
To "disperse" destructive content, the aggressor's accomplices created dozens of profiles on YouTube video hosting and social networks.
In Prykarpattia, a resident was sentenced for distributing a video in support of Putin and fighters of the Russian "Wagner Group".
He took destructive content on thematic TikTok pages and then reposted it through his accounts on popular social networks.
In Cherkasy, the administrator of a network of channels and communities on YouTube, Telegram, and Facebook, who called for the seization of state power in Ukraine, received a prison term.
Among other things, he called the murder and torture of people in Buch by the Rashists a "stage".
Another enemy agitator was convicted in Mykolaiv Oblast. He turned out to be a computer science teacher at a local school who was spreading Kremlin narratives from a working computer at the school.
On the school device, he created his account in Odnoklasniky, from which he called to capture the entire territory of Ukraine and popularise the Gauleiter Saldo.
According to the SSU materials, the court found the perpetrators guilty of:
Chapter 2 of Art. 109 (public calls for the seizure of state power);
Chapter 2 of Art. 436-2 (justification, recognition as legitimate, denial of armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine).
They were sentenced to the maximum term of imprisonment for these crimes in the form of five years in prison.
The investigation was conducted under the procedural guidance of the General Prosecutor's and regional prosecutor's offices.
How Russia is using Telegram to spread hostile propaganda
As Bloomberg notes, recently, Russian intelligence officers used it to recruit petty criminals to carry out sabotage in European capitals.
It has angered European officials, who have prioritised combating fake news ahead of continental elections in June. For all their new powers to regulate information on the Internet, they are virtually powerless to restrict Telegram.
Disinformation is spread in Telegram openly and completely without control, Estonian Prime Minister Kaya Kallas told Bloomberg.
A typical pro-Russian propaganda campaign relies on a flurry of online techniques. These include publications on social networks, articles in state media, fabricated news imitating the appearance of legitimate websites, and anonymous comments on real ones.
Telegram functions as a central hub in this ecosystem, a bridge that advocacy groups use to distribute their content to active social communities and reach a wider audience.
