Pictures of cats led to a Sochi resident being fined for Nazi symbols.

A Sochi court fined a local resident for publicly displaying Nazi symbols after he posted an image of "Kotolf Kitler" on Telegram.

Bogdan Ivanov's administrative case was heard by the Adler District Court in Sochi. The hearing took place on the day the case was filed.

The charge of displaying Nazi symbols (Part 1 of Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) was based on a post the man made on Telegram on April 10. Mediazona* drew attention to the ruling in the court's files today.

According to the court, Ivanov "posted a post publicly displaying the "Kotolf Kitler" symbol, which is a Nazi symbol used by the Third Reich." The man pleaded guilty, and the court sentenced him to the minimum penalty – a fine of 1,000 rubles.

The court ruling does not explain what the "Kotolf Kitler symbols" represent or what the published image looked like. Search engines, in response to a corresponding query, return images of cats with facial patterns reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's moustache and hairstyle; the publication "Verstka"* suggests that the Sochi resident's post may have contained an image of such a cat, but it is unknown whether it contained genuine Nazi symbols.