Russian blogger fined for comparing Russians to animals. He is already serving time on a Nazi rehabilitation charge.
A Moscow court fined blogger Arsen Markaryan 20,000 rubles after finding him guilty of inciting hatred or enmity, the Moscow courts’ press service reported.
The case stemmed from a video in which investigators found a “dismissive and contemptuous emotional and semantic attitude toward Russians.” The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona clarifies that the recording is one in which Markaryan says that “Russian people are more animal than other people.”
The clip was published in the Telegram channel of Z-blogger Vladislav Pozdnyakov, though the court ruling states that Markaryan posted it himself.
Markaryan’s defense argued that he did not upload the video and that the clip was recorded in 2022, meaning the statute of limitations had expired. The court ruled that the statute of limitations runs from the moment the violation is discovered — which, it said, occurred in 2025.
Arsen Markaryan is known for his misogynistic statements. He was detained in August 2025, reportedly while attempting to leave Russia. The grounds for Markaryan’s detention was a video in which the blogger reflects on self-sacrifice and insults Soviet soldier Alexander Marosov, calling him a “fucking idiot.” The court sentenced him to four and a half years in a general-regime prison.
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