At a meeting of the 1st Eastern District Military Court, the prosecutor's office asked to sentence Khabarovsk activist Angel Nikolaev to 18 years in prison, the Solidarity Zone reports. His sentence will be announced on May 3.
38-year-old Nikolaev was detained in Khabarovsk in July 2023 because of red-painted flags on the graves of participants in the war with Ukraine at the city’s Central Cemetery. Later, the man was accused of setting fire to the military registration and enlistment office of the Industrial District — in September 2022, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at him, and two offices in the building burned down.
As the Solidarity Zone writes, Nikolaev admitted that he had painted the flags with paint, but did not agree with the accusations of desecrating burial sites and committing a terrorist attack. According to human rights activists, the man is also charged with “a number of actions related to the destruction of Z-symbols.”
The author of the psychological and linguistic examination pointed out that the signs on the flags are “similar to Nazi [symbols] to the point of confusion.” The examination states that the images in red paint express “an extremely negative attitude of the person towards the military personnel and military personnel.”
Nikolaev is accused of five criminal articles — terrorist attack (clause “c” of part 2 of article 205), desecration of burial places (clause “b” of part 2 of article 244 of the Criminal Code), hooliganism (clause “b” of part 1 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code), vandalism (Part 2 of Article 214 of the Criminal Code) and desecration of the Russian flag (Article 329 of the Criminal Code). Judging by the case file, he is charged with two counts of desecration of the flag and grave sites.