As specified in the explanatory note to the document, the draft Criminal Code is supplemented by article 243.4.
It establishes "criminal liability for the destruction or damage of military graves, as well as monuments, stelae, obelisks, other memorial structures or objects, perpetuating the memory of those who died during the defense of the Fatherland or dedicated to the days of military glory of Russia."
The same act committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, with the use of violence or the threat of its use will be punishable by a fine from 2 million to 5 million rubles.
“Or in the amount of the convict’s salary or other income for a period of one year to five years, either by compulsory labor for up to 480 hours, or forced labor for up to five years, or imprisonment for the same term,” the document says .
On March 2, a court in Poland ordered the district prosecutor to investigate the destruction of the mausoleum and the burial place of Soviet soldiers in Trzcianka.
The mausoleum monument, created in 1945, was destroyed in September 2017. He was struck off the list of military graves.
In the summer of 2019, the Russian ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreev, spoke about the dismantling of more than 420 Soviet monuments outside burial sites over the past 20 years.
February 23, during a speech at a gala evening in honor of Defender of the Fatherland Day, the Russian president said that the country will always expose any attempts to distort history and will not allow anyone to cross out the heroic page in its history.