The prosecutor requested a 9-year prison sentence for Moscow Police Department officer Sergei Klokov (Vedel), who was arrested on March 18, 2022 for spreading “fake news” during a phone conversation, reported by the Mediazona website.

The prosecutor also demanded that Klokov be stripped of the rank of commander and banned from working in state agencies for five years.

According to the prosecutor, on March 9 of last year, Klokov communicated by phone with his acquaintances and told them “about the huge losses” of the Russian side, about executions in units for refusing to follow orders, about the destruction and killing of civilians by Russian soldiers.

The prosecutor believes that Klokov received this information from “propaganda Ukrainian sources.” In addition, it reported that the officer called Russia a “killer country” during the conversation and said that one must “understand the Kremlin.”

“We are sure that we are fighting fascism, but there is no fascism there. They destroyed my city. They killed children. [Κατέστρεψαν] the maternity wards,” reads an excerpt of Klokov’s transcribed conversation with a former colleague (cited by the Mediazona website).

Opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who was convicted of “spreading false news”, said he had seen Klokov’s indictment, which was based on the policeman’s private phone conversations with relatives and acquaintances from Ukraine, which were monitored by his colleagues.