Blogger Ilya Remeslo told the court he regrets nothing

Statement before the hearing

The Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg is considering the criminal case of blogger Ilya Remeslo on Tuesday. Before the hearing, he told journalists that he does not regret the publications on his Telegram channel criticizing the Russian authorities and the conduct of the SVO. “I regret nothing; if I could go back to the spring of 2026, I would do the same,” the blogger is quoted as saying by a Gazeta.Ru correspondent from the courtroom.

Progress of the case

Remeslo was detained on July 17 in St. Petersburg, where he lives, after which he was taken to Moscow for investigative procedures. The Basmanny Court remanded him in custody for two months in a case concerning the dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Russian Armed Forces during the SVO; the trigger was a post on his Telegram channel. The blogger was then transferred to the Serbsky Institute for an inpatient comprehensive forensic psychological and psychiatric evaluation — he was found sane. In an interview with journalist Ksenia Sobchak, he said he had been given a diagnosis that he himself described as “lite.”

A turn in his public stance

Before the case, Remeslo was known for supporting the authorities and reporting on the opposition. In March 2026, he published a series of sharp posts, stating that he no longer supported the Russian authorities and the SVO, which sparked heated discussion on social media and among military bloggers and journalists. After a month in the hospital, he continued to criticize the work of the presidential administration. Earlier, he also stated that he had exercised his right to freedom of speech. He told journalists about his conditions of detention in the pre-trial detention facility before the hearing: according to him, his “cellmates are wonderful people,” and many innocent people are imprisoned there.