A resident of Izhevsk who uses a wheelchair has been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for a comment about Putin and the FSB.

The Central District Military Court has found 58-year-old Aleksandr Krichevsky, who uses a wheelchair, guilty of inciting terrorism (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) and sentenced him to a general regime penal colony. SOTAvision reports this.

The ruling was delivered by Judge Aleksandr Raitsky.

The case was initiated over a comment in the Telegram channel run by opposition Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov. In September 2024, Krichevsky wrote about the blogger: “That’s why we listen to him, because he is not afraid—a ray of freedom in a kingdom of darkness! And we will destroy this darkness only together, when we realise that we have a single enemy—Putin and his FSB clique… Both you and we need to destroy this enemy, so that we can live on as peaceful neighbours.”

Krichevsky was detained in December 2024 and remanded in pre-trial detention. He did not admit guilt and insisted that he was not calling “for any physical elimination” of the president or FSB agents, but was merely saying that “the darkness should be destroyed.”

As Mediazona reports, before his arrest Krichevsky worked as a systems administrator in Izhevsk, a city in the Urals. In 1989, he suffered a spinal injury, which paralysed his left leg and left his right leg without sensitivity. Because of this, he had to drop out of medical school and begin a lengthy rehabilitation. He was eventually able to walk again, but with a severe limp and struggling to climb stairs. In the 2010s, he fractured his hip and re-injured his left leg. Since then, he has had to use a wheelchair to get around.

Krichevsky also has kidney problems, a head tremor, and has been diagnosed with emphysema of the lungs. “It could be early Parkinson’s with Alzheimer’s, or perhaps something else—I can’t say for sure,” he told the court. SOTAvision also reports that he has inflammation of the bone marrow.

Since 2016, he had been living with and caring for his elderly mother. In 2024, she was hospitalised with a complex fracture and could no longer walk independently. Krichevsky helped her sit up and do breathing exercises to prevent bedsores and pulmonary oedema. After his arrest, she was transferred to a care home, where she died a month later—from pulmonary oedema.

“In the care home, it seems, she was left in bed, lying down. When a person is in a horizontal position for a long time, they develop pulmonary oedema. That’s exactly what my mother died from,” Krichevsky said.

Following his arrest, he was unable to renew his group I disability status. He was not allowed to undergo the required medical assessment. The court was given a statement from prison doctors claiming that he is not disabled and his health is satisfactory. At the same time, the prosecutor in court acknowledged his health to be “unsatisfactory.”

Krichevsky is also not receiving medical assistance in detention. “[They told me: ] We’ll only help you if you are dying. Otherwise, just sit and endure it,” he said.