The 2nd Western District Military Court of Moscow sentenced 15-year-old teenager Arseny Turbin from the city of Livny, Oryol region, to five years in prison in a correctional colony, reports the human rights group Memorial. Information about this was confirmed to Mediazona by the student’s mother, Irina Turbina.
The teenager was found guilty in the case of participation in a terrorist organization (Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code).
According to the FSB, during the summer holidays Turbin was engaged in “distributing extremist propaganda materials on instructions from the curators of the Ukrainian paramilitary association Legion “Freedom of Russia””: he placed leaflets “Do you need such a president?” in mailboxes, took photographs with a white-blue-white flag and started the “Free Russia” telegram channel.
“The FSB assured me that this leaflet with Putin was given to him by the legion. Arseny says this is a leaflet from Google. They tell me, no, Google doesn't. But then I found her, she was the first to appear on Google,” the student’s mother, Irina, told Mediazona.
The security forces came to search their apartment on August 29, 2023. In early September, Turbin was detained and placed under house arrest with the opportunity to attend school; On May 31, 2024, the preventive measure for the teenager was replaced with a ban on certain actions.
The FSB claims that the student “became carried away by politics” and “the ideology of liberalism.” As a result, the investigation believes, he “formed the opinion that there is no freedom of speech and independent media in the Russian Federation.” The case materials stated that Turbin “does not like the education system and lawlessness in the country, corruption,” that he does not approve of Putin’s policies and does not support the war in Ukraine.
According to investigators, the student began correspondence with representatives of the “Freedom of Russia” legion, joined this military association and “fulfilled their instructions for the production and distribution of documentary materials.” Arseny himself says that no one gave him instructions and that he laid out the leaflets, guided by his convictions. He denies that he sent the questionnaire to the legion.
Memorial considers Turbin a political prisoner. Human rights activists called the conclusions of the investigator for especially important cases, Irina Simonova, that the student committed actions of a “terrorist nature” far-fetched and unfounded.