Dear Mr. Navalny, We hereby inform you that on July 31, 2010, from 1:00 p.m., the personnel of military unit 5402 were assigned to maintain public order and public safety at Petrovsky Stadium during the Zenit (St. Petersburg) vs. Rubin (Kazan) football match. The servicemen carried out no other duties. Your so-called "photo report" contains photographs taken five to six years ago, which had already appeared in a criminal case concerning hazing and other non-regulation abuses in this unit. In 2007, two servicemen shown in these photographs—Vinikainen and Yegorov—were convicted by the St. Petersburg Garrison Military Court for abusing fellow servicemen and sentenced to 5 years and 3.5 years respectively. The commander of the military unit was removed from his post and subsequently dismissed from military service. You are misleading your readers and colleagues. In doing so, you are also setting up the media, which, relying on your information and failing to verify it through official sources, publish it and mislead an even larger number of readers. I received this in the mail today. Obviously, my so-called "photo report" refers to the photographs in the post about the "Pearl Ensign." The sender's name is "Valery Viktorov." There is no signature on the letter itself. I would have thought the letter was fake if I hadn't been sent this link: The Northwestern Regional Command of the Internal Troops of the Russian Interior Ministry denies reports that the “Pearl Ensign,” who became notorious during the July 31 rally at Gostiny Dvor (a historic shopping arcade in St. Petersburg), serves in one of its units. Of course, no one is going to go after military unit 5402 for no reason. If it turns out that the "Pearl" officer has nothing to do with them, I will apologize to them. And by the way, the complaints filed with the prosecutor's office did not mention military unit 5402 at all. The information came from various sources, but I still chose not to include it in the official filing, just to be safe. Update. I received another letter confirming that the previous one was written by Ilya Krenzhel, acting head of the press service of the Northwestern Regional Command of the Internal Troops of the Russian Interior Ministry. So this is the official position of military unit 5402. We are waiting to see what the prosecutor's inquiry turns up.