Russian Regions Impose Fines for Reporting Ukrainian Drone Strikes

At least 12 regions in Russia have started fining citizens for publishing information about the incomes of Ukrainian drones.

The ASTRA news outlet reported on this.

According to the report, a group of senators has developed a package of amendments that would impose penalties for sharing any military-related information — ranging from data on troop deployments to photos showing the flight paths of air defense missiles.

Offenders faced administrative penalties (a fine of up to RUB 50,000), and in the case of repeated violations, they face criminal liability, with up to three years of imprisonment.

However, the legislative initiative was not adopted at the federal level — its implementation was delegated to the regional authorities.

Last week, Kalmykia and the Tver region joined the ten other Russian regions where similar fines were already in effect.

In the Kaluga region, courts have already received 42 reports of violations of the ban imposed by the regional operational headquarters on disseminating information about the aftermath of drone crashes. One such report was filed in the Tula region.

In two cases, the subjects of the reports were media outlets; in five others — local residents who filmed drone strikes and posted the footage online. Three additional reports concerned comments made on social media.

The remaining reports involved administrators or owners of Telegram channels, VKontakte public pages, and authors of personal accounts.

The fines range from RUB 3,000 to RUB 200,000, depending on the region and whether the offense was repeated.

In this way, the Russian government is attempting to support official propaganda, which claims that all drones are “intercepted” by air defense systems.

Additionally, this measure may hinder Ukrainian analysts who rely on videos from local residents to independently verify and assess the impact of strikes.