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52-year-old Aleksandr Novosad said during questioning in court that FSB officers mocked him and forced him to sign a confession during his detention. This was reported by Medizona.

According to the man from Chelyabinsk, immediately after his arrest he was taken into a minibus and beaten on the chest, head and ribs. One of the officers asked him: “Shall I cut your ear off?”

After this, Novosad was taken to his flat. Here is how he describes what happened next:

“They put me on the floor, pulled down my trousers, tied up my eyes and put something made of paper in my hands. They photographed me with my bare behind. At that moment, they did not hit me. But they wrapped me in Christmas lights, which they took from a drawer. They switched them on and laughed, saying I looked like a Christmas tree.”

After the search, he was forced to record a confession under dictation. When he refused, two masked officers hit him several times. In the end, Novosad complied with their demands.

  • The Chelyabinsk resident was detained in March 2024 and initially charged only with justifying terrorism (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) and incitement to extremism (Part 2, Article 280 of the Russian Criminal Code) because of comments criticising the war and supporting Ukraine, as well as wishing death upon Putin and his supporters.
  • A year later, Novosad was also charged with treason (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to investigators, “using the bank accounts of people misled by representatives of a foreign state,” he sent five transfers totalling 15,000 roubles (approximately US$160) to a representative of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Novosad himself says that in 2023 he was contacted by someone called Bohdan, who said he lived in Ukraine and asked for money for food. He also wrote that his friends from Russia were helping to resist the war and gave Novosad the bank card details of a woman from Moscow, to which money could be transferred.