Switch Language

On 23 June, the Serpukhov City Court in the Moscow region sentenced Russian language and literature teacher Natalya Taranushenko in absentia to seven years in a general regime penal colony. She was found guilty of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army, using her professional position, and “motivated by political and national hatred” (points “a” and “d” of Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the court’s press service.

She was also given a three-year ban on working in education.

The prosecution was prompted by a homeroom lesson Taranushenko held for Year 8 pupils at School No. 1 in the town of Protvino, near Moscow, on 15 April 2022. That day, she was supposed to lead a class hour themed “A good deed. Let’s help the people of Donbas!”

According to the prosecution, Taranushenko spoke to the pupils about the killings of civilians in Bucha by Russian soldiers and showed them two videos about the invasion of Ukraine. The court claimed that Taranushenko’s statements contained “false information about the actions of the Russian Armed Forces against the peaceful population of Ukraine.”

In an interview with OVD-Info, Taranushenko later said that for this class period, teachers were expected to say how “it’s good that we entered Ukraine, to deliver the official line, and to collect humanitarian aid.” However, she chose her own approach. She read an extract from Anne Frank’s diary to her class, and then played a video showing a girl of her age from Ukraine describing the Russian invasion: “Before, I thought it was scary to fall out with a boy, but now I know what’s really frightening—it’s when your mother lies there silent, and I have to tell my little brother that she’s just asleep, when I know she’s dead.” Afterwards, Taranushenko spoke about what happened in Bucha and remarked that Russia “was behaving as Nazi Germany did in the 1930s.”

Although this class hour took place in April 2022, criminal proceedings were only initiated in June 2024. The case was pushed for over two years by the father of two pupils who were present at the lesson—himself a former pupil of Taranushenko—who spent two years filing complaints demanding she be punished.

Two days after the case was opened, 65-year-old Taranushenko left Russia. She was soon declared wanted. Because of this, she was detained by border guards before boarding a flight from Armenia, but released several hours later. However, she was not allowed to leave the country at that time.