{"id":530562,"date":"2026-04-02T10:10:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T07:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=530562"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:36:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:36:57","slug":"russian-citizen-fined-in-smolensk-region-over-sms-sent-to-belarusian-security-officer-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/russian-citizen-fined-in-smolensk-region-over-sms-sent-to-belarusian-security-officer-in-2020","title":{"rendered":"Russian Citizen Fined In Smolensk Region Over SMS Sent To Belarusian Security Officer In 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A Russian citizen has been held liable for an SMS message sent to a Belarusian security officer in 2020. This was reported by the Belarusian Prosecutor General&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p>According to its version, the Russian citizen, while in Russia&#8217;s Smolensk Region, used the internet to send <em><i>&#8220;an SMS message threatening violence to the phone number of a serviceman of the Internal Troops of the Belarusian Interior Ministry in connection with the performance of his official duties in suppressing mass unrest by a group of citizens with radical views towards the current authorities in the republic&#8221;<\/i><\/em>. The harsh suppression of demonstrations in Belarus after the 2020 election sparked outrage, which many people expressed in various forms.<\/p>\n<p>The man&#8217;s identity was established by Russian security services at the request of their Belarusian counterparts. However, it was impossible to extradite him because he held Russian citizenship.<\/p>\n<p><em><i>&#8220;Taking these circumstances into account, on the basis of the Convention of the CIS member states on legal assistance and legal relations in civil, family and criminal matters of 7 October 2002, the Prosecutor General&#8217;s Office of the Republic of Belarus transferred the further criminal prosecution of the person concerned, together with the case materials, to the competent authorities of the Russian Federation.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><i>During the preliminary investigation, the man fully admitted his guilt in the offence attributed to him and repented&#8221;<\/i><\/em>, the prosecutor&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the Safonovo District Court of Russia&#8217;s Smolensk Region found the man guilty of threatening violence against a representative of the authorities in connection with the performance of his official duties and sentenced him to a fine of 50,000 Russian roubles. He was also ordered to pay 100,000 Russian roubles in moral damages to the Belarusian security officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Russian citizen has been held liable for an SMS message sent to a Belarusian security officer in 2020. This was reported by the Belarusian Prosecutor General&#8217;s Office. According to its version, the Russian citizen, while in Russia&#8217;s Smolensk Region, used the internet to send &#8220;an SMS message threatening violence to the phone number of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":496265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/69ce2aac919ed.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Russian Citizen Fined In Smolensk Region Over SMS Sent To Belarusian Security Officer In 2020"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143127,143094],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-society","category-incident"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}