A criminal case has been opened against a Russian citizen who asked for help in finding and detaining the Kremlin's master under the article on “hooliganism committed for reasons of hatred.”
Grigory Ivanenko, a resident of the Russian city of St. Petersburg, who publicly announced a reward for the capture of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been ordered by the court to undergo compulsory psychiatric treatment.
The Moscow Times reported this with reference to the press service of the courts of St. Petersburg.
The Krasnoselsky District Court found Ivanenko guilty under the criminal article on “hooliganism committed for reasons of hatred.”
However, the accused was released from criminal liability – the court decided to place him in a hospital to undergo a course of psychiatric care.
According to investigators, on April 29, 2024, Ivanenko came to the Krasnoselsky military registration and enlistment office and posted an announcement about Putin's search on the information board. The man offered a reward of one million rubles for assistance in his arrest.
As The Moscow Times reports, against the backdrop of the war with Ukraine, Russia has once again begun to actively use a practice rooted in the Soviet past: forced psychiatric treatment of citizens with opposition views.
According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, as of the end of February 2025, such measures had been applied to at least 48 defendants in politically motivated cases. In particular, 46 people were sent to psychiatric institutions for treatment, and two more were placed on outpatient registers, while they were serving their sentences in prison.
According to Memorial, 13 of these convicted individuals were persecuted for their disagreement with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Let us recall that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for a war crime related to the deportation of Ukrainian children.
The threat of arrest in countries that have ratified the Rome Statute forced the Kremlin master to refuse to personally attend the BRICS summit in Brazil.
