A resident of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a major city in the Russian Far East, has been sent to a pre-trial detention centre for donating 400 roubles (approx. US$4) to Ukrainian military medics.

In Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a major city in the Russian Far East, a criminal case for high treason (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code) has been opened against Alexander Sarbaev, an employee of a trading company. He is accused of transferring 400 roubles (approx. US$4) to Ukrainian military medics in February 2022. Sarbaev wrote about this to Mediazona in a letter from the pre-trial detention centre (SIZO).

In March, he was detained by the police and a report was filed against him for “swearing in public without reason” (Part 1, Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code). On 21 March, the Central District Court of Komsomolsk-on-Amur sentenced him to 10 days of administrative arrest. After serving this term, Sarbaev was taken to the FSB’s office, where he was formally charged with high treason. The next day, he was transferred to the pre-trial detention centre.

In the spring, he underwent an inpatient psychiatric assessment. Sarbaev is currently held in SIZO-1 in Khabarovsk, another major city in the Russian Far East. As he told Mediazona, in five months he has only met with the state-appointed defence lawyer twice: “I saw nothing but indifference and some formalities from her,” he noted.

Sarbaev is 43 years old, graduated from the Faculty of Philology at the Pedagogical University in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and worked at AntaresGroup. In his letter, he wrote that he has never “kept his anti-war stance a secret.”