The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow imposed a three-year suspended sentence on 59-year-old journalist from Tomsk Igor Kuznetsov in the Left Resistance case. This was reported by human rights activist Alexey Pryanishnikov.
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“Left resistance” is a small movement of left-wing activist from Kuban Daria Polyudova, whose participants went to pickets in Moscow and distributed leaflets. Polyudova herself is now in prison, including on charges of creating the “Left Resistance.”
Kuznetsov has been involved in the human rights movement since the late 1980s. For many years, he held single pickets in his hometown, and also wrote for the publication about civic activism, RusNews. He was found guilty of participating in an “extremist community” (Part 2 of Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code)
The investigation based the accusation on the fact that the journalist was among the administrators of the “Left Resistance” group on VKontakte and corresponded with Daria Polyudova. In 2019, he also applied for a rally in Tomsk. Despite the refusal of officials, Left Resistance posted an announcement of the action. Kuznetsov came there with a poster “Down with the imperialism of Moscow and Beijing.”
Despite a suspended sentence in the Left Resistance case, Igor Kuznetsov remains in custody in a Moscow pre-trial detention center. He is also now being tried in the Butyrsky District Court in Moscow along with other participants in the “What to do!” telegram channel, which appeared before the 2021 State Duma elections.
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According to investigators, at least 11 people from seven regions of Russia called for street protests on voting days (Part 1.1 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code). The defendants in the case are also accused of inciting hatred by an organized group (clause “c” of Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code). They have been under arrest since September 2021.
Kuznetsov admitted that he administered the “channel «What to do»«, but, according to him, he acted “solely as a journalist”, he did not organize any actions and did not publicly call on anyone to participate in them. In December 2023, he was asked to serve nine years in a general regime colony in this case. For other defendants, the prosecutor's office requested sentences from seven to eleven years in prison. The announcement of the verdict was postponed, since an additional linguistic forensic examination of the correspondence was ordered in the case.