An elderly woman from Kazan, a major city in Tatarstan, was convicted in a case about anti-war comments and released from punishment.

The Privolzhsky District Court in Kazan sentenced 64-year-old activist and former history teacher Irina Nikolskaya to a three-year suspended sentence for repeated “discrediting” of the army (Part 1, Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), a listener told OVD-Info.

The court also imposed a four-year ban on her administering websites, but immediately released the elderly activist from this penalty due to the statute of limitations expiring.

The case against Nikolskaya was opened last year because of anti-war comments she posted on VKontakte from September 2022 to February 2023. In one of them she wrote: “I believe in Russia, that it will once again manage to find its way towards the light.”

Another comment stated: “And where did your heroes drop bombs? Children, women without electricity, maternity hospitals, kindergartens without water. The nation really has become callous if people can rejoice at this and consider it heroic.”

The elderly woman said that during this period she was commenting with regret that thousands of Russian soldiers were dying in the war and Ukrainian civilians were suffering. She did not admit guilt.

Since August 2024 Nikolskaya has been under a travel ban.

In autumn 2022, the elderly woman was prosecuted under administrative law for “discrediting the army” (Part 1, Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). At that time she was fined 30,000 roubles (approx. US$330) for a comment about refugees from Mariupol whose relatives had been killed and homes destroyed—after the start of the war, Nikolskaya herself had helped refugees from Ukraine. Bailiffs withheld the fine from her pension and threatened to confiscate her flat.