In St Petersburg, a student accused of justifying terrorism has been released from pre-trial detention.

On 12 January, a support group for St Petersburg State University student Harry Azaryan reported that his pre-trial restrictions had been eased: instead of being held in custody, he was now subject to a ban on certain activities.

Azaryan had been held in a pre-trial detention centre since May 2025.

The 23-year-old student is accused of justifying terrorism on the internet (part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) over a speech he gave at a meeting of left-wing activists, whom security forces describe as members of the Trotskyist organisation “Workers’ Power.”

The authorities claimed that Azaryan had called for murders “to draw attention to the activities of the ‘Workers’ Power’ cell.”

A source from “Mediazona” said the content of the speech was different. According to them, the student “essentially repeated the textbook Marxist view” of societal development: intensifying contradictions and public discontent lead to revolutions, which do not happen without violence. Azaryan said: “People will take to the streets and will kill; there’s no revolution without this.”

At the same time, he added: “Our task is not to incite hatred; we are not extremists. Our task is to explain to people that capitalism is to blame.”

Activists recorded this speech and uploaded it to a cloud storage service. This is likely why the student has been charged under the second part of Article 205.2, which concerns statements made on the internet.