A court in Yekaterinburg on Thursday did not place the former mayor of the city, Yevgeny Roysman, under house arrest, contrary to a request by investigators.

However, Rojsman should not visit public places and events, not use the Internet and only be allowed to talk to close relatives and lawyers.

Investigators accuse Rojsman of repeatedly "discrediting" the Russian armed forces, and he faces up to three years in prison.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Rojsman had criticized the Ukraine war on social networks.

In court he denied any guilt.

Investigators had asked that he only be allowed out of his home between 11:59 p.m. and midnight.

The court did not follow that.

The politician is extremely popular, especially in Yekaterinburg, his homeland.

Despite the great danger, several dozen Yekaterinburgers took to the streets on Wednesday to demand his release.

"Times like this don't last forever"

"Everything will be fine in the end," Rojsman said in court.

"Don't doubt it!

Such times will not last forever.” Roysman is a supporter of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

He is now being held in a penal camp 240 kilometers east of Moscow, apparently again in solitary confinement.

On Wednesday, Navalnyj published a statement on social networks, according to which he had been taken to the "punitive isolator" for the second time within a short period of time.

He was told that he had broken the rules during his first solitary confinement of three days - which Navalnyj said he had received in mid-August with reference to an unbuttoned overall.

After the command "Hands on your back!" Navalnyj is said to have put his hands behind his back three seconds later.

This time he received five days of solitary confinement.

Navalny is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for alleged fraud, among other things.

Other cases are pending, all of which are considered politically motivated.

Navalny's comrades-in-arms published research on Thursday, according to which children of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Zalikov without sufficient income of their own own real estate worth more than 71 million euros.