St. Petersburg court sentences ex-con to two years in prison for an Internet post about Russia's ‘repressive regime’

A court in St. Petersburg has convicted a man from Kislovodsk of inciting hatred of state officials and law enforcement with a post on Vkontakte, sentencing him to two years in prison.

In August 2015, Vladimir Timoshenko was serving out a previous sentence at a prison in the Novgorod region, when he called a friend and dictated the text of a post that would be published in a Vkontakte community called “Slavic Power: Nord West Peterburg.” According to the website Fontanka.ru, the post included the phrases “anti-national regime” and “vindictive-repressive system.” Timoshenko went free in December 2016, but police detained him two weeks later.

In 2010, Timoshenko was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for plotting to blow up the walls of the Novgorod Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod.