A labourer from Chelyabinsk, an industrial city in the Urals, faces a request for a seven-year prison sentence over two comments on Telegram.

At the Central District Military Court, during the closing arguments, the prosecutor requested a seven-year sentence in a penal colony for 55-year-old labourer from Chelyabinsk, Sergei Fomov, on charges of “justifying terrorism” (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by SotaVision.

According to the investigators, on 1 February 2024, the man posted a comment on politician Boris Nadezhdin’s Telegram channel with the words: “Putin to the gallows along with his comrades, and no nails! Move the capital to St Petersburg, bury Lenin, turn the Kremlin into a museum of a terrifying past, and may the racks and torture devices from the mad dictator Ivashka’s era stand everywhere.”

The second comment attributed to Fomov, according to investigators, was published on the “Freedom of Russia Movement” channel. He is alleged to have commented under a poll asking whether the channel’s subscribers vote in elections. The comment read: “Well done, RDK, real men have returned to their Homeland.”

In addition to the seven-year prison term, the prosecutor asked the court to impose a five-year ban on Fomov from administering online resources. The defence requested a fine for Fomov, highlighting that both he and his mother suffer from age-related health conditions.