[9] On 25 March 2022, federal laws No.62-FZ and No.63-FZ amended articles 20.3.3[10] and 207.3[11] to extend the punishments for discrediting or disseminating unreliable information regarding the extraterritorial exercise of powers by other Russian state bodies.

[12][13] On 18 March 2023, federal laws No.57-FZ[14] and No.58-FZ[15] made additional amendments to the administrative and criminal codes, extending the punishments for discrediting or disseminating unreliable information to the activities of volunteers, their formations and organizations aimed at assisting the tasks of the armed forces.

[citation needed] The following episode explained to children that what they witnessed was not to be spoken aloud for fear of drawing the Russian authorities' anger and lust for administrative violence.

"[47] On 25 March 2022, Russian journalist Izabella Yevloyeva was charged under the "fakes law" after sharing a post on social media that described the "Z" symbol as being "synonymous with aggression, death, pain and shameless manipulation".

[46] On 13 April 2022, Russian journalist Mikhail Vyacheslavovich Afanasyev, editor-in-chief of the online magazine Novy Fokus, was detained by police over its reporting on the war in Ukraine.

[50] Sergei Klokov, a Moscow policeman who is originally from Bucha in Ukraine, was arrested after telling co-workers what he had heard from Ukrainian friends and family about the Russian invasion.

[57] On 18 May 2022, an administrative offense case of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces was filed against musician Yuri Shevchuk, the leader of the rock band DDT, after he said at a concert in Ufa: "The motherland, my friends, is not the president's ass that has to be slobbered and kissed all the time.

[66] The first person convicted under criminal code article 207.3 is Pyotr Mylnikov, who posted documents in a Viber chat about mobile crematoriums owned by the Ministry of Defence.

On 30 May 2022, Olovyanninsky District court found him guilty of dissemination of unreliable information about Russian Armed Forces and its operations and sentenced him to a fine of 1,000,000 rubles.

[67] The first person imprisoned under criminal code article 207.3 is Alexei Gorinov, a then-60-year-old deputy at Moscow's Krasnoselsky district council, engineer, lawyer and human rights defender.

"[68] Gorinov maintained his innocence during the case hearing, citing his constitutional rights to free expression, and said: "I thought that Russia exhausted its limit on wars back in the 20th century.

Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva ruled that his motivation was "based on political hatred" and that he had misled Russians, prompting them to "feel anxiety and fear" about the invasion, while a sympathizer said this was "historic hell".

[83] Russian citizen and single father Alexei Moskalyov, who was sentenced to two years in prison for anti-war comments on social media, had been arrested in Minsk, Belarus, on 30 March 2023.

[86] In May 2023, history teacher Nikita Tushkanov from Russia's Komi Republic was sentenced to 5+1⁄2 years in prison on charges of "justifying terrorism" and "discrediting" the Russian military for calling the Crimean Bridge explosion "a birthday gift for Putler.

[90] On 7 August 2023, Russian science fiction writer Dmitry Glukhovsky was sentenced to 8 years in prison for spreading "false information" about Russia's armed forces.

His lawyer Olesya Panyuzheva said the case against Nozdrinov showed that "anyone who … has a public activity, uncovers crimes and wrongdoings of corrupt police officers and representatives of the court and other law enforcement agencies, can be put behind bars.

[97] In November 2023, Moscow's Basmanny District Court found Russian blogger and tech worker living in Canada, Maria Kartasheva, guilty of violating Russia's wartime censorship laws and sentenced her to eight years in prison.

[100] On 28 December 2023, Russian poets Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba were sentenced to 7 and 5.5 years in prison respectively for reading anti-war poems during a street performance in Moscow in September 2022.

[118] One day prior, the Russian Telegram channel Мракоборец exposed the personal details of the editor, arguing that Bernstein had allegedly made illegal edits to Wikipedia articles about Russia's assault on Ukraine.

[119] On 31 March 2022, Roskomnadzor threatened Wikipedia with a fine of up to 4 million rubles "for failure to remove unreliable socially significant materials, as well as other prohibited information" about the invasion.

[120] On 4 April 2022, Civic Chamber of Russia member Ekaterina Mizulina asked the Prosecutor General's Office and Roskomnadzor to investigate Wikipedia for a criminal offence in connection with the dissemination of information about the invasion.

Political scientists favoured by the Kremlin including Sergey Karaganov have openly used the word "war" – instead of the legally-mandated "police action" or lexically approved "special military operation" – without the legal consequences faced by opponents.

[132] On 13 May 2022, former FSB officer and pro-war military blogger Igor Girkin harshly criticized Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, accusing him of "criminal negligence" in conducting the invasion.

[78] On 13 September 2022, Russian Communist Party (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov, told State Duma that the "special military operation" in Ukraine "has turned into a full-fledged war.

[137] Putin's associate Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of mercenary group Wagner, said about the commanders of the Russian army that "All these bastards ought to be sent to the front barefoot with just a submachine gun.

In December 2022, Nikita Yuferev, a deputy of the St. Petersburg Smolninskoye Municipal District, asked Russian authorities to investigate Putin for using the word "war" to describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[142] He accused the Russian Defense Ministry under Sergei Shoigu of "trying to deceive society and the president and tell us how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO."

Amnesty International strongly condemns the escalating attack against civil society organizations and independent media unleashed by the Russian authorities since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and urges the Russian authorities to abide by their international human rights obligations and Russia's Constitution to respect, protect and fulfill the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

The organization is calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with and provide support to Russian civil society activists, human rights defenders and journalists who are at increased risk for expressing their opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[145] Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that "These new laws are part of Russia’s ruthless effort to suppress all dissent and make sure the [Russian] population does not have access to any information that contradicts the Kremlin’s narrative about the invasion of Ukraine.