MOSCOW, May 12 (RAPSI) – A criminal case has been opened against a 16-year-old from the Astrakhan Region in southern Russia who allegedly placed comments on the social media expressing approval of the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, Andrei Slyusarev from of the regional department of Russia’s Investigative Committee told journalists on Tuesday.

The teenager is suspected of whitewashing or glorifying Nazism. 

The investigators claim that the suspect had placed a photograph of WWII German soldiers on social networks and added a comment approving the events of September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. That invasion was later denounced as a war crime at the Nuremberg Trials.

“This fact has been established and is being investigated by the Federal Security Service (FSB) department for the Astrakhan Region,” the statement says.

President Vladimir Putin on May 5, 2014, signed a law that introduces criminal liability of up to five years in prison for rehabilitating or glorifying Nazism, for denying the facts established at the Nuremberg Trials and for spreading false information about the Soviet Union’s role in World War II. The law also introduces fines for desecrating Russian military glory dates or monuments.