YouTuber Yuri Khovansky added to Russia’s terrorism blacklist

Rosfinmonitoring (Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service) has added video blogger Yuri Khovansky to its list of organizations and individuals accused of involvement in terrorism or extremist activities.

On the agency’s website, the 31-year-old is included on its blacklist of “Russian individuals” at number eight. 

As OVD-Info explains, individuals blacklisted by Rosfinmonitoring face banking restrictions. In particular, Russian banks block their accounts, making it impossible for them to perform any transactions on their cards, take out loans, or apply for jobs.

Yuri Khovansky is a popular Russian video blogger and rapper, who’s YouTube channel has more than 4.4 million subscribers. He was arrested in St. Petersburg in June on suspicion of “publicly justifying terrorism” and jailed pending trial. The criminal case against Khovansky was opened over a song about the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis that he performed during a live stream. The YouTuber apologized for the song following his arrest, calling it disgusting.