On the evening of June 8, Russian video blogger Yuri Khovansky was arrested in St. Petersburg on suspicion of “publicly justifying terrorism.”
According to the investigation, Khovansky publicly performed a song on the Internet in mid-2020, which, according to expert opinion, contained evidence of public incitement to terrorist activities. Unofficial reports say that the criminal case was opened over Khovansky’s song about the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis.
On June 9, the state news agency TASS reported that Khovansky had pleaded guilty to performing a song that “justifies terrorism.”
YouTuber Yuri Khovansky’s arrest
Meduza
Yuri Khovansky is a popular Russian video blogger and rapper, who’s YouTube channel has more than 4.4 million subscribers. Since 2019, Khovansky has also been an aide to Vasily Vlasov, a State Duma Deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR).
The Nord-Ost siege
On October 23, 2002, terrorists seized the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow during a performance of the musical “Nord Ost,” demanding the withdrawal of federal troops from Russia’s Chechnya. On October 26, the Russian security forces stormed the theater, after flooding it with knockout gas. According to official data, 130 hostages were killed as a result of the terrorist attack, 119 of whom died in hospital after being freed. The cause of death of many of the hostages has been attributed to the security forces’ mishandling of both the evacuation and transport of hostages to hospitals.