A Russian court in Syktyvkar sentences a man to four years in prison for posing as a KGB chairman and advocating the USSR's return

A court in Syktyvkar has sentenced a local 40-year-old man to four years in prison for inciting extremism and publishing hate speech. The man posed as a “KGB chairman of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic,” shared anti-Semitic comments, and advocated the restoration of the Soviet Union in posts on Vkontakte.

According to a statement from prosecutors, the man (whose name hasn’t been released to the public) was under house arrest for attacking a traffic police officer when he posted the inflammatory content.

On August 14, police in Togliatti charged an elderly woman named Lyubov Kuzaeva (the former head of the Society of Indigenous Russian People) with sharing “extremist” content on Vkontakte. She’s accused of inciting ethnic hatred and rehabilitating Nazism.

In recent weeks, Russian police have opened criminal cases against people who deny the collapse of the USSR. On August 9, officials detained a group at Kislovodsk City Hall, where the activists demanded to see the “documents” establishing legal continuity between the Soviet and Russian states. A few days later, several people “sealed off” the local council building in Astrakhan and raised the Soviet flag in place of the Russian tricolor, resulting in their detention by police.