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The Petrodvortsovy District Court in St Petersburg has sentenced 66-year-old local historian Vladimir Zhuravlyov to three years in a penal colony over a case concerning “fake news” about the army (clause “d” part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code). Prosecutors had requested a seven-year prison term. Mediazona reports.
Before the verdict, Zhuravlyov spoke about his health condition.
“To be honest, by law, a person with cancer, with heart [conditions] requiring heart surgery, with a spinal illness, who is a second-category disabled person, probably cannot legally be deprived of their freedom… Still, anything is possible,” said the historian.
The criminal case was triggered by three posts Zhuravlyov published on VKontakte in April 2022. In them, he wrote about the war in Ukraine, the killings of civilians in Bucha and Russian army losses, and urged mothers not to send their sons to war. The posts have since been deleted.
Zhuravlyov admitted publishing the posts but denied acting out of hatred towards Russian soldiers.
“I published them, but without hatred, without slandering the Russian armed forces. On the contrary, I devoted 20 years to glorifying Russia’s military glory,” he said in court.
Zhuravlyov lives in Lomonosov, a town near St Petersburg, and for many years has studied the city’s history. He has written a dozen books, including on the military history of Oranienbaum, and over 50 articles. Zhuravlyov trained as an engineer, worked in a military unit and at a defence plant, and later was involved in outdoor advertising. In the 2010s, he served as a municipal council member in Lomonosov, spoke out against logging and the building of a waste processing plant.
The local historian was detained in July 2025. The court declined to send him to pretrial detention and placed him under house arrest. In December of that year he had an operation and afterwards walked with a cane.