Sergey Reznik

Sergey Reznik is an opposition journalist from Rostov-on-Don. The newspapers he worked for were gradually closed down, and in recent years he has been engaged in journalistic activities exclusively on his blog in Live Journal. In his opinion, the reason for the persecution was his support of former Rostov region prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov in his fight against local officials. Reznik's phone was tapped and he received threatening calls. After complaints to the Investigative Committee, prosecutor's office and FSB about threats, a case was opened against Reznik under the article on false denunciation: he allegedly hired people to call him and threaten him, and then accused them of threats. Reznik was also charged with commercial bribery – he allegedly tried to bribe an employee of a vehicle inspection station to pass the inspection without showing his car – as well as insulting a representative of authority: in his blog he called Olga Solovyeva, chairwoman of the Arbitration Court of the region, a hag. Reznik, his supporters and lawyers revealed a number of falsifications in the case, but the court still sentenced the journalist to a year and a half in a general regime penal colony. After Reznik was convicted, another case was initiated against him – about false denunciation and at the same time insulting Rostov police operative Andrei Glinkin (Reznik suspected him of paedophilia), as well as insulting Dmitry Ishchenko, regional deputy head of the department for countering extremism (Reznik called him a "prison bitch") and Roman Klimov, former deputy prosecutor of the Rostov region (he called him a "tractor driver – prosecution swindler"). On 22 January 2015, he was sentenced to three years in a penal colony. On 13 May, the court of appeal reduced the sentence by a month. On 25 October 2016, he was released.

On 15 October 2021 Reznik was released on his own recognisance in the case of insulting the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland. On 25 October, he was indicted. Due to the fact that Reznik's whereabouts were not established, he was put on a wanted list.

In July 2022, it became known that a criminal case was initiated against Reznik for spreading knowingly fake information about the Russian Armed Forces.

In August 2022, it became known that a case was opened against Reznik for extorting money from Roman Gevorkyan, the director of the Nakhchivan market in Rostov-on-Don. In the same month, it was reported that three cases – on the rehabilitation of Nazism, on "fake facts" and on extortion – were merged.

In December 2022, it became known that Reznik was charged with calling for extremist activity because of a post with comments by anonymous lawyers about the shooting at a military recruitment centre in the Irkutsk region, published in the Rostov_com Telegram channel. At the time, in Ust-Ilimsk, 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin wounded a military commissar with a rifle, after which he was detained by the National Guard officers. The linguists who conducted the expert examination perceived "justification of violent ideology" and "incitement to commit violence against military commissars" in the publication. Reznik claims that the investigation has no evidence of his involvement in these comments.