The key facts
- A 20-year-old resident of Rubtsovsk was sentenced to five years in a general-regime colony with a four-year ban on public activity on the internet
- The audience of the channel he created reached 1,492 subscribers; the community operated from 2023 to 2025
- The investigation against the other members of the group has been separated into separate proceedings
Sentence for a resident of Rubtsovsk
In the Altai Territory, a 20-year-old resident of Rubtsovsk has been sentenced to five years in a general-regime penal colony for creating an extremist community on a messaging app and public calls for hate-motivated crimes. This was reported by the regional directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia, which published a statement about the verdict.
What the investigation and the court established
According to the investigation, in 2023 the young man, who adhered to ideas of national and social superiority, created a channel on one of the messaging apps, where he posted extremist materials and urged users to join the community he had organized. To spread his ideology, he used not only the main channel but also group chats with chatbots; over time, the audience of the resource grew to 1,492 subscribers. Through the internet, he found like-minded people in various regions of Russia, some of whom joined the group he led, whose members, as the court established, had united to prepare and commit crimes motivated by hatred and enmity. The unlawful activity of the community continued from 2023 to 2025; it was stopped by officers of the regional FSB directorate and the Center for Countering Extremism of the Altai Territory Interior Ministry directorate. The court found the defendant guilty under the articles on creating an extremist community and public calls for extremist activity on the internet. In addition to five years in a general-regime colony, he was banned for four years from engaging in activities related to publicly posting materials online. The investigation into the other members of the group is ongoing — their criminal cases have been separated into separate proceedings.
A comparable case in Transbaikalia
For comparison of the scale of punishments in similar cases: Life.ru previously reported on the sentence given to a 23-year-old administrator of a Telegram channel in the Transbaikal Territory — he was found guilty of justifying Nazism and terrorism, as well as calls for extremism, and was sentenced to nine years in a general-regime colony with a five-year ban on public statements on the internet. The Altai verdict differs in the composition of the charges: there, the main charge was precisely the creation of an extremist community, rather than justifying Nazism and terrorism, which partly explains the difference in terms — five years versus nine.
