They are courageous: young people who protest in Russia against the war in Ukraine face severe penalties. They serve as a deterrent for imitators. ‘Do you need a president like that?’ These words were written on leaflets by 15-year-old Arseniy Turbin from Livny and distributed through neighbours' letterboxes. On 20 June, he was sentenced to five years in prison by a military court in Moscow. The reason given was that
At the end of February 2023, 16-year-old gymnasium student Yegor Balazeikin smashed a Molotov cocktail against the wall of a military recruitment office in the Leningrad region. This is how the teenager decided to express his protest. In the summer of 2022, Egor's uncle died in Ukraine, who had gone on a special operation as a volunteer. After that, the young man became a convinced opponent of the SVO. The
Correctional Colony No. 19 in Volgograd Oblast, where four colony employees and four convicts were killed in a hostage situation on August 23, had the whole set of problems of the penal system. Convicts were abused here, and they slit their wrists; superiors were caught taking bribes; recruitment for the PMC “Wagner” and the regular army was conducted here - every fourth person died. Lattice under the stairs The high-security
The youngest of them is 16 years old today. Following the Russian prisoner exchange, the OVD organisation currently counts 2747 politically motivated criminal proceedings, including 1015 against opponents of the war, 131 of which were against children and young people. 15-year-old Arsenij Turbin from Liwny was recently sentenced to 5 years in prison for distributing anti-war leaflets. Today he has to celebrate his 16th birthday behind prison walls. The
Russia exchanges spies for political prisoners According to data available to The Insider, the released political prisoners include Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Paul Whelan, Ilya Yashin, Alsu Kurmasheva, Andrei Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Alexandra Skochilenko, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Rico Krieger, Kevin Lik, Demuri Voronin, Vadim Ostanin, Patrick Schobel, and Herman Moyzhes. In return, Russia has received FSB operative Vadim Krasikov, along with multiple spies and fraudsters. HOW THE TALKS
Evan Gershkovich was detained in the spring of 2023 in Ekaterinburg. Russian authorities accused him of espionage. According to the investigators, the journalist was commissioned by the CIA to collect information about Uralvagonzavod, which manufactures and repairs military equipment. The investigation claims that this information constitutes a state secret. Courts regularly extend the journalist's stay in pre-trial detention. Gershkovich does not admit guilt, insisting that he was engaged in Russia
The 1st Western District Military Court of St Petersburg has sentenced artists Anastasia Dyudyaeva and Alexander Dotsenko in a case of "calls to terrorism" over postcards in Ukrainian posted in Lenta. The prosecution requested 4 years of imprisonment for the couple. The court sentenced Alexander to 3 years in prison and his wife Anastasia to 3.5 years. According to the investigation, Dyudyaeva made leaflets in Ukrainian, on which, among other
Fifteen-year-old Arseny Turbin, from the town of Livny, in western Russia’s Oryol region, was sentenced to five years in prison for terrorism on 21 June. Though he excelled at maths and was fascinated by physics and tech, he had planned to study political science, in an attempt to better understand what was happening in Russia and with the hope that it would teach him how to improve the situation further
The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case under the article on "discrediting" the army against Eduard Charov, a Christian preacher from the Sverdlovsk Region. On 27 June, the notification about the initiation of the case was published by the preacher's wife Inna Charova, attention to the publication was drawn by the publication "7×7. Horizontal Russia. The reason for the case was a repost of a picture about
Arseniy Turbin, a 15-year-old resident of the town of Livny, Orel region, was sent to an educational colony for five years, allegedly for his participation in the Legion "Freedom of Russia" organisation*. The schoolboy Arseniy Turbin was under house arrest from 5 September 2023 to 31 May 2024 with the right to attend the lyceum, then he was released on his own recognizance, but soon - on 20 June 2024