A “citizen of the USSR” from Khakassia has been sentenced to compulsory labour

The Chernogorsk City Court in Khakassia has sentenced Igor Fisyuk, who identifies as a “citizen of the USSR,” to two years of compulsory labour on charges of participation in an extremist organisation (Part 2, Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code), reported the court’s press service.

According to investigators, from July 2022 to September 2024 he used social networks and messengers to circulate materials calling for people to renounce Russian citizenship and refuse to pay taxes, argued that Russian law is illegitimate, and spoke about the need to set up alternative organs of state power and governance. The release states that Fisyuk engaged in discussions on Odnoklassniki, VKontakte, WhatsApp, and Telegram, and also moderated the group “People’s Committee of the USSR. Krasnoyarsk.”

He was initially sentenced to two years in prison, but the sentence was substituted with compulsory labour for the same term, along with restrictions on his freedom and a ban on administering websites. Fisyuk’s mobile phone was confiscated and the proceeds given to the state as the instrument of the crime.

On 7 December 2023, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court upheld a prosecutor’s claim and declared the “Executive Committee of the Council of People’s Deputies of Krasnoyarsk Krai” extremist. On 5 February 2024, the committee was added to the federal list of extremist organisations. At that time, Igor Fisyuk was named as the head of the organisation’s local branch in the Kirovsky district of Krasnoyarsk, a major city in Siberia.

In February 2023, the Askiz District Court in the Republic of Khakassia sentenced him to 40 hours of compulsory work for posting on VKontakte a photo of a person with a caption which, according to a comprehensive psychological and linguistic analysis, was found to contain “signs of degrading human dignity of a person or group of persons united… by their profession or affiliation with government bodies or security agencies” (Article 20.3.1 of the Administrative Code), and also fined him 1,000 roubles (about US$11) for posting materials featuring Nazi symbols on VKontakte (Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code).