A court in occupied Crimea fined a local resident for insulting Putin on social media five years ago.

The illegal "Kyiv District Court" in the temporarily occupied Simferopol has fined local resident Nazim Mujdabaev 70,000 rubles (over 27,000 hryvnias) for cursing at the President of the Russian Federation five years ago.

This was reported by the Crimean Human Rights Group (CHRG).

The "Kyiv District Court" of occupied Simferopol fined local resident Nazim Mujdabaev 70,000 rubles due to a photo of Putin on social media with the caption "Vovka p….bol", the statement said.

Mujdabaev published the photo of the Russian dictator five years ago. At the same time, he acknowledged his "guilt" and asked the court for leniency, explaining that he did not remember when he posted it and that he had already removed it.

The man was found guilty of disseminating information that expresses disrespect towards the state and the authorities exercising state power (part 3 of article 20.1 of the Administrative Code), the human rights defenders reported.

According to the ruling, Mujdabaev has three minor children and is officially unemployed. The court imposed such a fine (70,000 rubles) considering mitigating circumstances.

The Crimean Human Rights Group also reminded that in the spring of 2019, a law was signed in the Russian Federation amending article 20.1 of the Administrative Code (minor hooliganism) with parts 3-5, which allow for fines against citizens for disseminating information on the internet that "expresses, in an indecent form, an insult to human dignity and public morals, a clear disrespect for society, the state, official state symbols of the Russian Federation, the Federation, or the authorities exercising state power in the Russian Federation."

According to human rights defenders, these changes are aimed at suppressing criticism of the actions of the Russian authorities.

As a reminder, at the beginning of October this year, in the temporarily occupied Crimea, the occupiers sent one of the leaders of the Simferopol Clinical Hospital, Andrei Perelygin, under administrative arrest. Pro-Russian social media, citing staff from the institution, claimed that he had expressed support for Ukraine and had set the song "Chervona Kalyna" as a ringtone on his mobile phone.