Moscow [Russia], April 28: A Russian court has placed Forbes journalist Sergey Mingazov under house arrest after he was detained for allegedly spreading fake news about the Russian armed forces, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti has reported.
Forbes Russia says its journalist will be under house arrest for at least two months as he awaits trial after being detained on Friday.
RIA reported on Saturday that: "Forbes journalist Mingazov, detained in the case of spreading fake (news) about the Russian Armed Forces, has been placed under house arrest."
On Friday, Mingazov's lawyer Konstantin Bubon said that the journalist had been detained for "reposting a publication about the events in Bucha (Ukraine)" on Telegram.
Mingazov's Telegram channel had 476 subscribers at the time of publishing this article. It shows that he reposted stories about the Russian military allegedly committing atrocities in Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, from other news outlets such as the BBC's Russian outlet and Radio Freedom.
Bubon said that Mingazov is accused of spreading "knowingly false information" about the Russian armed forces "under the guise" of reliable reporting.
The city of Bucha was liberated by Ukrainian forces at the end of March 2022, having been occupied near the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February the same year. According to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office, the Russian army committed thousands of war crimes in the Bucha district, with hundreds of civilians killed in the town.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings and has reiterated baseless claims that the images of civilian bodies were fake.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation