Moscow's Meshchansky district court has ordered outspoken Russian designer Artemy Lebedev to pay 1 million rubles ($15,600) to a World War II veteran for offensive blog posts, the TASS news agency reported Friday, citing a court spokesperson.
The court ordered Lebedev to delete the offensive material and pay 1 million rubles in damages to Sergei Kramarenko, a World War II veteran, the court's spokeswoman Yulia Bocharova told TASS.
Kramarenko filed his lawsuit following blog posts written by Lebedev on the blogging platform LiveJournal on Feb. 6, and May 9, 2014.
According to Kramarenko, Lebedev's posts insult the memory of World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, “which is unacceptable in a country where the worshiping of World War II veterans and victims is a historical duty of the state and society,” the news agency reported.
Artemy Lebedev is a well known designer and popular blogger, famous for his provocative views.
Lebedev is the owner of the design studio Art.Lebedev, which developed the official logos for the Russian cities of Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Perm, as well as Crimea.
