Maksim Reznik, a deputy of the St. Petersburg legislature, has appealed to the prosecutor’s office to investigate the actions of his fellow legislator Vitaly Milonov who he said was caught posing with a machine gun in his hands during a recent trip to the Donbass, RBC.ru reported

Translation: Milonov is once again posing with a machine gun in eastern

Ukraine. I urge the prosecutor to investigate his actions.

Reznik linked to an article in Fontanka.ru in

which editors said that readers had sent them a video and pictures of

Milonov holding the gun, then shooting it into the bush.

Milonov

acknowledged he had made the trip to the Donbass, but said it was

“exclusively for humanitarian aid.”

“Regarding the photographs, I can’t

respond, someone has photoshopped them,” he said.

He said few people made

humanitarian aid trips to Gorlovka, and that he had gone to the

frontline city in order to bring assistance to orphanages and children’s

shelters (translation by The Interpreter):



“The shelter for girls with children is right on the

front line, and shells fly into their yard. The director receives a

salary of 4,000 rubles ($65) a month. We bought to the orphanage all kinds of

useful gifts so that they can start the school year. There isn’t even

soap or shampoo there. I would like to propose that the governor take

charge of Gorlovka. As for my photographs with weapons, these are

provocations and insinuations.”

This isn’t the first time that

Milonov has been shown with weapons and denounced the pictures as

“photoshopped,” says Fontanka.ru.

In August 2014, he also traveled to the Donbass and

photographs also circulated at that time showing him with a machine gun,

grenade launcher and artillery. At that time he said he has “been in

Novorossiya,” but claimed the photographs were fakes.

In

this case, the video, embedded at Fontanka.ru is not clear enough to

determine who is doing the shooting, and the source is not given. The

pictures of the husky man with the distinctive red beard do look like

him, however.

However, in other photographs of Milonov such as on Wikipedia, a similar ring is on his right hand, not left hand:

But he must switch it from hand to hand, because here he is in a TV interview with filmmaker Michael Lucas with the ring on his left hand:

Milonov is best known for his anti-gay statements

such

as his call to ban Apple CEO Tim Cook from Russia for life “as a health

threat” because he is gay; his diatribes caused a statue to Apple

founder Steve Jobs in a university courtyard to be removed, as we

reported last year. This prompted two lesbians who happened to be on a flight with him to take a selfie with him which became an Internet meme.