On October 10, Ossetian journalist Ruslan Totrov reported on his Telegram channel "Freedom Square" about another fine issued to him for a post about a "fascist state" on a social network. The administrative case was initiated under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("incitement of hatred or enmity towards a group of persons"). This is the fourth fine for Totrov, who left Russia in 2021.

The reason was a post on Instagram from May 27, describing a real case: "The simple everyday life of ordinary state fascism. Amazingly base news that perfectly illustrates the essence of a truly fascist regime: "A passenger on a Moscow-Vladikavkaz flight was detained for reading a book in Ukrainian during the flight. Ella I., a 34-year-old Moscow resident, was flying from the capital to Vladikavkaz. The passenger was taken to the police station from the Pobeda Airlines flight. During the flight, those present in the cabin thought that Ella was behaving strangely: she often asked the flight attendants for water, used the restroom too regularly, and was also reading a book in Ukrainian. The suspicious passenger was reported to the airport manager, who then reported her to the police. Upon landing, the police were already waiting for the girl at the plane's steps. Ella was taken to the police station for investigation; during the investigation, Ukrainian badges and stickers were also found on the passenger's jacket, backpack, and phone. The passenger's actions are being investigated; she may face punishment for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces." The most popular reaction to this on the Internet is a clown emoji. But the sovereign's servants are not clowns. They are model fascists." As follows from the decision of the Industrial District Court of Vladikavkaz, the post was noticed by employees of the Center for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of North Ossetia together with the Federal Security Service during monitoring of the banned social network Instagram. Having checked the account, the operatives contacted the owner of the page: “Rooslan Totrov; occupation: political journalist, expert on global communications; place of residence: Ossetia, Dubai, UAE”. An FSB expert conducted a linguistic study and concluded that “the above publication expresses the addresser’s negative attitude towards the current state system through the use of expressive negative-evaluative words “fascism”, “fascist”; contains a statement aimed at inciting hatred and hostility towards a group of people identified on the basis of belonging to a social group (civil servants) and at humiliating the dignity of this social group”. On August 24, the court found Totrov guilty of committing an administrative offense under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation and sentenced him to a fine of 20,000 rubles. The offender himself knew nothing about the court hearing, and his colleagues informed him of the decision, who accidentally found it on the court's website. "This is undoubtedly an illegal, grossly fabricated sentence, which we will challenge in all possible Russian and international instances," the journalist noted.

This is the fourth fine issued to Ruslan Totrov after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The first two were issued in the fall of 2022 for discrediting the Russian army in comments for the New York Times and Ekho Kavkaza.

"The Russian army has been discredited before me at various levels, and I could not discredit it further... This is pressure on me as an independent journalist," Totrov commented on these fines. On December 1, 2022, he was again found guilty of discrediting the Russian military and fined 50 thousand rubles. The journalist appealed all the decisions, but the Supreme Court of Ossetia upheld them.

Ruslan Totrov left Russia in June 2021. Six months before that, two unknown people broke into his office and knocked out his teeth, saying, “Don’t write nasty things and lies about Bibilov.” Before that, the journalist covered socio-political events in South Ossetia, whose president was Anatoly Bibilov.