“At this moment, Zelenskyy walks past me and says: ‘Ah, I’ve seen your stories on Instagram. Glory to Ukraine!’ I reply: ‘Glory to heroes!’ Zelenskyy pats me on the shoulder and approvingly says: ‘Let this one go, and execute everyone else.’
“So there we are, me and him, standing side by side, watching, and I tell him: ‘Can I get a selfie with you for my Instagram?’ Zelenskyy says: ‘Sure,” added Losev.
When a local official told him he was being charged with the offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment, he said: “This is idiocy,” according to a report by local news outlet Sibir.Realii.
The law has been used by the Kremlin’s enforcers to prevent criticism of the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, captive residents in occupied Mariupol were said to be on the brink of civil unrest as they faced winter without central heating.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to its exiled mayor, warned the despair could soon spill over into full-blown riots against the occupational authorities.
“A riot is brewing in Mariupol,” Andryushchenko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
About 90 per cent of Mariupol’s buildings and critical infrastructure were damaged or destroyed as it was subjected to brutal bombardment during a months-long siege earlier this year.
The warning came as images of what appeared to be defensive trenches on Crimea’s beaches were shared online.
Photographs showed the trenches dug into the sand, their zig-zag pattern running parallel to a promenade in the village of Chornomorske, on the west coast of the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.
According to local reports, police had also been ordered to patrol the sandy stretch in an attempt to defend against an amphibious assault on occupied Crimea.
The further defences being erected by Russian forces also appeared to confirm British intelligence that Putin’s troops are so bogged down they are “unlikely to operationally make significant advances within the next several months”.
