Lawyers treat sentence to Krasnodar man for calls to terrorism to as lenient

The verdict to Vladimir Yarotsky, a resident of Krasnodar, who was fined by 350,000 roubles within the case of calls for terrorism, was a very lenient punishment under this article, lawyers have noted.

This January, a court in Krasnodar sentenced Vladimir Yarotsky to 1.5 years in colony, finding the image with a Saint George's ribbon posted by him in a social network to be desecration of a military glory symbol. In March, a new case against Yarotsky was submitted to the Southern District Military Court; he was accused of calls for terrorism.

Maria Spasibukhova, a lawyer, treats the court ruling that fined Yarotsky for calls to commit a crime against Putin as rather lenient. "Given that this is a serious article, which provides for five to seven years in jail and a minimum fine of 300,000 roubles, he was given an almost minimal punishment," she has stated.

Felix Vertegel, another lawyer, treats the above court ruling as adequate. "If a person has no previous convictions, admits his guilt, and repents, then a fine is an adequate punishment," he believes.

A fine is the most common punishment under the article on calls for terrorism, says Mikhail Akhmetiev, an expert at the SOVA Research Centre. According to his story, fines were also imposed in some cases that received great publicity in the media.

"For example, in 2020, Svetlana Prokopieva, a journalist (recognized as a foreign agent), was sentenced to a fine of 500,000 roubles for discussing a terror act committed in the FSB building in Arkhangelsk. In 2023, Maxim Smolnikov, a street art painter from Khabarovsk, was fined by 300,000 roubles," Mr Akhmetiev has added.