Moscow police press secretary fined for photos of drug lab that police passed off as photos from Ivan Golunov’s apartment

Yury Titov, who leads the press service for Moscow’s branch of Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry, has been disciplined in connection with the case against Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov, RBC reported.

Titov and the press service he leads have not yet commented on the disciplinary actions taken against him. They only came to light after Alexander Khaminsky, a former advisor for the Moscow police department, submitted an inquiry to police about their handling of the Golunov case.

After Golunov was arrested on fabricated drug charges and his apartment was searched, photographs were posted on the Moscow Internal Affairs branch’s website that depicted drug paraphernalia allegedly seized in Golunov’s home. It quickly became clear that the photographs had been taken elsewhere. After the charges against Golunov were dropped, the pictures were deleted; they have been archived here.