Sevastopol man charged with desecrating Russian flag after kicking makeshift memorial to Yevgeny Prigozhin

A 21-year-old man was charged with desecrating the Russian flag on Thursday after he stepped on a flag at the base of a monument in Sevastopol’s Artillery Bay, the Russian Interior Ministry has reported.

“Because the offender had a negative attitude towards the conduct of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine, he decided to express his disagreement and kicked the fabric of the flag as well as the objects placed on it,” read the ministry’s statement.

According to the Telegram channel Baza, the flag was part of a makeshift memorial to Wagner Group founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin. On August 25, the channel reported, Sevastopol resident Gleb Malkov kicked the men’s portraits, which were set atop a Russian flag. After witnesses began to shout at him, he reportedly fled the scene, but was arrested soon after.

Russian police in Sevastopol published a montage of video footage related to the case. In one of the clips, Malkov says that he kicked the monument because “Russia attacked his country,” adding that Sevastopol is Ukraine. In another, he says that he did it “out of hostility towards the special military operation,” that he regrets his actions, and that he “wants to apologize to all residents of the city of Sevastopol.”