On 23 May 2022, a court in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Dagestan region, imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles on Magdi Kamalov, the founder of major local independent newspaper Chernovik, for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces.
According to the court, Kamalov distributed fake news by reposting content on his Telegram channel which was originally written by a pro-war, anti-government figure. In the original post, also published on Telegram, its author claimed that Russian military commanders were “afraid of responding to” Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and “did not care” about the lives of ethnic Russian soldiers.