A history teacher has been sent to a penal colony over a 1945 poster featuring the flag of the Third Reich and the letter V.

A court in Sochi has sentenced 54-year-old Irina Kostrova to one and a half years in an open prison under the article on repeated display of prohibited symbols (Part 1, Art. 282.4 of the Criminal Code). Her lawyer, Maria Spasibukhova, told OVD-Info about the verdict.

The case was triggered by one of the historical posters that the teacher published on her page on Odnoklassniki.

In August 2023, she added to her album a propaganda poster from Nazi Germany. It shows a soldier standing on a tank marked with the letter V, holding a flag with a swastika. The poster reads “Victoria.” The teacher accompanied the image with an explanation about how it was used in Nazi propaganda.

Security forces detained Kostrova two years later. They forced her to sign a confession under threat.

In court, the teacher withdrew her statement. In her final words, she emphasised that she is opposed to fascism and does not admit guilt: “Not only do I not consider myself guilty, I believe that my work as a historian makes a significant contribution to the history of our people. And those who are working just to tick boxes against the achievements of our ancestors are even bigger criminals.”

On 28 January 2026 the Krasnodar Regional Court reduced Irina Kostrova’s sentence by two months, her lawyer Maria Spasibukhova told OVD-Info.

Now the woman will have to serve one year and four months in an open prison.

For now, Kostrova remains free and is required to travel to the facility where she will serve her sentence on her own.

• In June 2023, the teacher was arrested for three days under an administrative article on displaying prohibited symbols (Art. 20.3 of the Administrative Code)—for a caricature image of Putin resembling Hitler. In addition, in 2024 she was fined under the article on “discrediting the army” (Part 1, Art. 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code) for the phrase “No to war.”