Smolensk man charged with spreading ‘military fakes’ remanded in custody after attempted flight from Russia

Alexander Kislovsky, a 66-year-old resident of Smolensk charged with spreading so-called ‘military fakes’, has been remanded in custody after being detained in Vyborg. The decision was upheld by the Smolensk Regional Court, according to Mediazona, which reported the ruling.

Alexander Kislovsky is charged with knowingly disseminating false information about the Russian armed forces motivated by hatred, under paragraph ‘d’, part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code. The charges relate to comments allegedly posted online in April 2022. Since 30 September 2025, he had been subject to a travel ban.

The case was submitted to court on 10 March, but Alexander Kislovsky failed to appear at the first hearing on 24 March. The previous day, on 23 March, he was detained by border guards in Vyborg. He was subsequently charged with attempted illegal border crossing under part 3 of Article 30 and part 1 of Article 322 of the Criminal Code, and remanded in custody on that charge. On 14 May, the Vyborg City Court convicted him of the border crossing offence. The sentence imposed has not been disclosed.

On 7 May, the Leninsky District Court of Smolensk replaced his travel ban with pre-trial detention in the ‘fakes’ case. That decision was upheld on appeal on 26 May.

Alexander Kislovsky was born in Baranavichy, Belarus. According to his Facebook profile, he studied at Belarusian National Technical University in Minsk. In 2022 he stood as a candidate for the Smolensk Regional Duma representing the Democratic Party of Russia. According to the Central Election Commission website, he was at that time employed as an armed security officer in the security unit of the Promyshlenny district police department in Smolensk. In the same year, he was sentenced to two years of restricted liberty for a road traffic offence causing grievous bodily harm, under part 1 of Article 264 of the Russian Criminal Code.