By Murad Rakhimov | 2025-09-11

A doctored Simpsons clip has landed a woman in Crimea with a hefty fine and revealed how far Russia's courts are willing to go to punish even minor mockery of President Vladimir Putin.

In June 2025, Tatyana Ilyinets, a resident of the city of Dzhankoy, shared a short Instagram reel that showed cartoon characters spitting and dancing on a grave marked "Putin."

The clip wasn't real; it was a years-old internet edit of an episode in which the Simpsons cast scorn on the grave of Mr. Burns, the show's notorious tycoon. But when the doctored version resurfaced in the Russian-language corners of social media, local authorities treated it as an affront to state dignity.

The Dzhankoy District Court ruled that the video demonstrated "clear disrespect" toward the president and fined Ilyinets 30,000 RUB (about $370). Hers is not an isolated case.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, prosecutions for "insulting" President Putin and other officials have multiplied, and nowhere have they been pursued more aggressively than in annexed Crimea.

Insult and punishment

While trials for insulting President Putin surged after Russia launched its "special military operation," the legal basis dates back a century.

A statute against "insulting a representative of authority" first appeared in the Soviet criminal code of 1922. Russia kept the provision, Article 336, when it adopted its first post-Soviet criminal code in 1996, and lawmakers have repeatedly expanded it since.

The current version makes it illegal not only to insult the president but also Russian society, the state, the constitution, the national symbols and top government institutions, including parliament, the courts and the cabinet.

The law defines an insult as information "expressed in an indecent manner that offends human dignity and public virtue." The vague wording, critics say, gives prosecutors and judges broad discretion.

In winter 2025, a court in Stavropol fined school janitor Nina Yakovleva 50,000 RUB ($620) after she sent angry messages to her supervisor -- the school's facilities manager -- that allegedly included insults aimed at the school, the supervisor and President Putin.

Authorities classify obscene or degrading words, such as calling someone a "scumbag," as indecent expressions.

Under the law, cursing in public is considered petty hooliganism and carries a fine of up to 1,000 RUB ($12). Online insults draw far harsher penalties: up to 100,000 RUB ($1,240) for a first offense, double for a second, and up to 300,000 RUB ($3,730) for a third.

The regulations focus on the internet, where Russian authorities increasingly police dissent. With public assembly restricted, prosecutors target posts, memes, comments and videos shared online.

An August investigation by the independent outlet Verstka found that security forces conduct operations known as "Surveillance," scanning social networks and video platforms specifically to track down those who insult the president.

Russia also blocks websites without court orders if they contain content deemed insulting to authorities. Once a prosecutor flags a page, the federal media and communications watchdog Roskomnadzor notifies internet providers and site owners. If the content is not removed within 24 hours, access is restricted.

Critics say the practice violates Article 29 of Russia's constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and the right to share information.

Crimea's lead

Verstka reported that most cases of insulting President Putin are being brought in annexed Crimea. Over the past six and a half years, at least 50 people there have been fined and one placed under administrative arrest.

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of Central Asia Due Diligence in London, said many Crimean residents did not immediately adjust after Russia's 2014 occupation and continued to criticize authorities as they had under Ukraine.

"Conducting criminal and administrative cases for 'insulting' the president or other high-ranking officials contradicts international human rights. 'Insults' and criticism of the country's leaders, if not expressed as overt curses and obscenities, are part of the freedom to express one's opinion, and therefore are protected by international law," he told Kontur.

Russian human rights activist and blogger Alexander Kim aslo said prosecutions for insulting President Putin are unlawful. Calling the president "Putler" (by analogy with Adolf Hitler) or similar names, he argued, is simply expressing an opinion.

"Punishing this is tantamount to forcing a person to renounce their own opinion, which is prohibited by Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Expressing an opinion about public figures, whatever it may be, is part of public life and public self-government," Kim told Kontur.

"The right to express an opinion takes precedence over the right of any government official, including President Putin, to not hear unpleasant things about themselves."

Kim said the fines often match the income levels of those punished, creating a heavy financial burden. While less severe than penalties for "discrediting" the military, they still hit individuals hard.

"It's absolutely impossible to force someone to respect you," he said.

Dmitry Dubrovsky, a social sciences scholar at Charles University in Prague, noted that many countries still criminalize insults to heads of state, but most are not democracies. International law allows some restrictions, he said, particularly when tied to religion, as in Britain where the monarch is also head of the church.

"But, in general, we can say that international standards attempt to interpret these words as broadly as possible," he noted, argued that in Russia, such prosecutions and fines fuel self-censorship, online harassment and broader limits on free speech.