The city will stop collecting fines imposed from individuals and legal entities for violating coronavirus restrictions, and will also return those already paid. Not all regions are following the metropolitan trend yet: in some of them, fines for violators are still in effect.

According to the Moscow mayor's office, the amnesty will come into force on June 1 this year. Due to this, the collection will stop or about 13.6 billion rubles will be returned.

Fines will be reimbursed if they were imposed by the capital's executive authorities and their subordinate institutions for violating all coronavirus restrictions, except for non-compliance with the self-isolation regime during the COVID-19 disease.

“Compensation will be provided on a declarative basis when contacting the My Documents public service centers no later than December 31, 2022. In order to receive compensation, it is necessary to provide a decision on the imposition of an administrative penalty and a document confirming the payment of the fine,” the statement said.

Previously, residents of the capital have repeatedly had to deal with unfair fines for violating the mask regime.

Recall that the Moscow City Duma in 2020 changed the capital's code of administrative offenses in order to punish violators of the self-isolation regime. Fines were set in the amount of 4,000 to 5,000 rubles. The Octagon wrote that businesses were punished for non-compliance with sanitary standards, and fines were sent automatically to drivers who left without a pass to travel around the capital.

The facial recognition system also searched for violators of coronavirus measures among pedestrians, however, it did not always correctly identify the true culprit: it happened that a person was fined who was physically unable to go outside at a specified time.

Nevertheless, the courts sided with artificial intelligence, not the intruder.

A similar thing happened with the "Social Monitoring" system. She fined users for not taking selfies, although sometimes they could not be sent due to software glitches.

So far, the “covid amnesty” applies only to Moscow. According to the ConsultantPlus service, as of May 17, administrative liability in case of violation of coronavirus restrictions occurs in more than 15 regions of the Russian Federation.

For example, for violation of coronavirus measures in the Moscow region, St. Petersburg and North Ossetia, you will have to pay 4 thousand rubles, in Bashkortostan - from 1 to 3 thousand rubles, in Buryatia - from 500 rubles to 1.5 thousand rubles, in the Altai Republic - from 100 to 200 rubles, and in case of repeated violation within a year - from 200 to 500 rubles. Residents of these regions can only hope that their authorities will follow the trend in the capital and announce their “covid amnesty”.