A former associate professor from Kursk, a city in western Russia, has been sentenced to three years in prison over a comment made on Telegram.

The 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow has sentenced former associate professor of the South-West State University, Dmitry Skopin, to three years in prison under the article on justifying terrorism (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) over a comment on Telegram, reports Kurpepel.

According to the investigation, Skopin’s comment “justified the invasion and the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Sudzhansky district of Kursk region” and was posted on 12 August 2024. He was detained on 16 August—he voluntarily handed over his phone to the security forces, gave them his password and wrote a confession.

In court, Skopin explained that he left the comment in response to a message from a resident of Sudzha—a town in western Russia—written in Ukrainian. He said he wanted to support her: “At the time, I did not support the decision to conduct the ‘special military operation’ as I was anti-war, and killing is very wrong.”

On 25 February 2025, Skopin was added to Rosfinmonitoring’s “extremists and terrorists” list.