A jury found the St Petersburg resident, accused of damaging flags and a Z-banner, guilty.

During a session at the St Petersburg City Court, the jury found the guilt of Nikolay Trofimov, who is being prosecuted for spraying paint on flags and damaging a Z-banner, to be proven. This was reported by the press service of the city’s courts.

In the jury’s view, the man does not deserve leniency.

Trofimov was initially accused of using a medical syringe to spray black paint on Victory banners and Russian flags hanging by building entrances in St Petersburg on 4 and 9 May 2024. The case was opened under two counts of the law on the rehabilitation of Nazism (Part 3, Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code) and two counts of desecration of the flag (Article 329 of the Criminal Code).

In July 2024, Trofimov was presented with a new charge. The investigation alleged that in May 2023 he also damaged a “heroes of the special military operation” billboard and doused a flag with paint. Because of this, he faced another count under the desecration of the flag article, as well as an additional charge of vandalism motivated by political hatred (Part 2, Article 214 of the Criminal Code).

Nikolay Trofimov was detained on 11 May 2024, and two days later he was placed in a pretrial detention centre. On 6 June, he was released to house arrest, and later the measure was further eased to a travel ban and an obligation not to leave his place of residence.

In court, Trofimov spoke about torture. After his detention, he was beaten by six plainclothes officers: “They beat me on the head with their fists, kicked me, picked me up and threw me to the floor, put a gas mask on me and pinched it so it was hard for me to breathe.” The defendant explained that he gave self-incriminating testimony during the initial interrogations “because I was afraid I would be sent back to the officers who beat me.”