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The Meshchansky District Court in Moscow has sentenced the comedian to five years and nine months in a penal colony on charges of inciting hatred (paragraph “v,” part 2, article 282 of the Criminal Code) and insulting believers’ feelings (part 1, article 148 of the Criminal Code). Mediazona reports.

He was also fined 300,000 roubles (about US$3,300).

The prosecutor had requested a sentence two months longer.

The comedian was accused of inciting hatred over a joke about a person with a disability who was injured by a mine. Pro-government “Call of the People” movement activists reported Ostannin after deciding, in their words, that the comedian “mocked our fighter who lost his legs in the special military operation.” At the same time, the comedian’s performance did not mention the war in Ukraine, nor did he specify whether the hero of his joke had any connection to it.

The charge of insulting believers’ feelings was brought for a joke about Christ in which he cited their imagined dialogue:

—Do you know what happened before my crucifixion?

—The prayer in the garden?

He goes:

—Yes, ****, the prayer in the garden. Because you get so parched after the party.

Ostannin did not admit guilt and insisted on acquittal.

“I hope that no one else finds themselves in a situation of such extreme legal arbitrariness as I have,” he said in his final statement.

  • The comedian was detained in March 2025. He left Russia and flew to Minsk, but was detained there by local law enforcement, who handed him over to the Russian authorities. In court, Ostannin said that on the journey to Russia, law enforcement officers from Belarus stopped the car in a forest and beat him with truncheons, a sandbag and a stun gun. They also shaved off his dreadlocks with a knife and threatened to slit his throat.
  • In addition, after the detention, the “Belarusian Silovik” Telegram channel published a photo of the comedian with his hair cut and a mincer round his neck. The mincer was likely used as a reference to his joke about Murmansk United Russia members giving them to the mothers of fallen soldiers. (Murmansk is a large northern city in Russia.)
  • Ostannin’s defence lawyer reported after his arrest that law enforcement officers broke his ribs and injured his spine.