An elderly woman from Chelyabinsk region fined 450,000 roubles (approx. US$4,900) for using the word “Proud”

Elderly Satka resident Gulnara Bakhareva, from Chelyabinsk region (the Urals), has been fined 450,000 roubles (approx. US$4,900) on criminal charges of justifying terrorism online (Art. 205.2 Part 2 of the Russian Criminal Code). Bakhareva herself told OVD-Info about the verdict.

In total, Bakhareva will have to pay 600,000 roubles in fines (approx. US$6,500)—this sum is the result of combining penalties for multiple offences, including a previous criminal case.

News of the prosecution first emerged in October 2024. According to investigators, on 10 October 2023, Bakhareva posted a comment on the Telegram channel “You Are Not Alone 74” under a post about the birthday of political prisoner Alexei Nuriyev, writing “My fellow countrymen. Proud.” Nuriyev and another defendant, Roman Nasryev, have been sentenced to 19 years in prison for allegedly setting fire to a military records office in the Chelyabinsk region town of Bakal.

According to Bakhareva, on 2 October, FSB officers from Chelyabinsk arrived at her home and seized her phone. “I said to the FSB officers: ‘And what do ‘my fellow countrymen’ [in the comment] have to do with terrorism at all? ’ [They replied]: ‘No, it’s just one word: ‘Proud.’ So, for that word, for that single word ‘Proud,’ the linguistic experts concluded that it qualified as justifying terrorism. … I don’t know, maybe soon I’ll make it into the Guinness Book of Records, because I’ve never heard of anyone having a criminal case opened over a single word,” Gulnara Bakhareva recounted.

The investigator claimed that, by posting this comment, the Satka resident “recognised the ideology and practice of terrorism as correct, deserving of support and emulation, and presented terrorist activity as permissible.”

This is not the first criminal case against Bakhareva. In November 2023, the Central District Military Court found her guilty of incitement and justification of terrorism online (Art. 205.2 Part 2 of the Criminal Code) and fined her 400,000 roubles (approx. US$4,300). Linguists identified alleged justification of terrorism in her comment about the attack on the Crimean Bridge, which she described as “a legitimate military target.” According to experts, another comment—“The Ostankino TV tower must be blown up…”—was considered a call for terrorism.