Nikolai Dayneko, a defendant in the “Mayakovsky case,” has been released from the penal colony.

29-year-old poet Nikolai Dayneko was released today from Penal Colony No. 4 in Vladimir region, a region east of Moscow. This was reported by the support group for the defendants in the “Mayakovsky case.”

For the next eight years, he will be under administrative supervision. As clarified by RusNews, Dayneko is prohibited from leaving Moscow and Moscow region, from changing his place of residence, and must check in with the local police officer twice a month.

In May 2023, Dayneko was sentenced to four years in a penal colony on charges of inciting hatred (section “v” of part 2, article 282 of the Criminal Code) and calling for anti-state activity (part 3, article 280.4 of the Criminal Code).

The poet had entered a pre-trial agreement—usually this means the accused agrees to assist the investigation in exchange for a lighter sentence. Because of this, Dayneko’s case was considered separately from the other defendants.'

Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba were sentenced under the same articles to seven and five and a half years in a penal colony respectively.

All three took part in the “Mayakovsky Readings” in September 2022. Because of the poem “Kill Me, Militiaman,” which Kamardin read aloud, they were accused of inciting hatred towards “participants in military actions in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.” The charge of anti-state activity was brought against the young people because, according to investigators, Kamardin’s poems called on people “not to accept” draft notices from military enlistment officers and “not to comply” with them. Investigators labelled Shtovba and Dayneko as accomplices because they “repeated Kamardin’s poem aloud and raised their hands up.”