RUSSIA: Three anti-fascist activists sentenced to prison terms of 2 ½ to 9 years
An example among many on how the anti-extremist legislation is abused and manipulated in Russia
HRWF (16.03.2026) – While Vladimir Putin is fighting the allegedly Nazi state of Ukraine, he is hunting the anti-fascists in his own country as the Izmailovsky District Court of Moscow has recently shown with its sentencing of three anti-fascists to prison terms of 2 ½, 3 ½ and 9 years. This was reported on 2 February 2026 by “Ostorozhno_novosti”.
The Antifa United case
Троих антифашистов приговорили к срокам от 2,5 до 9 лет колонии по делу Antifa United
- 26-year-old Bogdan Yakimenko was sentenced to 9 years in a general regime colony with a subsequent ban on administering Internet resources for a period of 7 years.
- 20-year-old Roman Chizhikov was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
- 24-year-old Ilya Popov was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
Another defendant in the case, Matvey Ostrovsky, died during the trial. The court found him guilty and terminated the criminal prosecution on non-rehabilitative grounds.
The court found them guilty of
- organizing an extremist community, involving other persons in their activities (Part 1 and Part 2 of Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation),
- hooliganism (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code).
The charge of participation in an “extremist community” was a backbone element of the case and determined the severity of the punishments imposed.
The investigating authorities qualified as an extremist community the anti-fascist group Antifa United whose activities were based on public rejection of Nazi ideology. Such qualification raises serious doubts from the point of view of both the factual circumstances of the case and the current legislation of the Russian Federation.
According to Russian criminal law, crimes of an extremist nature presuppose the existence of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity against a social group. However, within the framework of this case, persons adhering to the neo-Nazi ideology were designated as a “social group” recognized as the injured party.
Thus, the law enforcement practice in this case actually led to the recognition of neo-Nazis as victims of extremism, while anti-fascist activities were criminalized and presented as extremist. Such an approach distorts the very legal nature of the concept of extremism and calls into question the compliance of the sentence with both national legislation and international human rights standards.
Anti-fascism as a motive
The convicts positioned themselves as anti-fascists. Bogdan Yakymenko, a school graduate with a gold medal and an excellent university student, openly said in his lengthy interview on YouTube that he considers the fight against neo-Nazism to be the most important cause of his life.
Yakymenko emphasized that his stance was a deliberate anti-fascist choice rather than an endorsement of any foreign political agenda.
He claimed that there are neo-Nazi groups in Russia and drew attention to the problem of the spread of ultra-right views among certain representatives of law enforcement and government agencies.
In the same interview, journalists Dmitry Okrest and Sergei Vilkov, themselves members of the left-wing movement, were present.
The topic under discussion in the interview on YouTube was: Why are anti-fascists persecuted in a country that claims to “defeat fascism” and how did the security forces used right-wing groups to carry out attacks against the opposition?
The essence of the charges
The three episodes at the heart of the case date back to 2021-2022.
According to the investigation:
- in April 2021, near Chongarsky Boulevard (Moscow, Russia), Yakimenko and Ostrovsky demanded that a passerby take off a T-shirt with a picture of a man who looked like Adolf Hitler, threatening him with a gavel,
- in June 2021, Ostrovsky and Popov sprayed pepper spray and fired a gas pistol at two young people of “right-wing views”,
- in the spring of 2022, Chizhikov hit a man in the Gallery Airport shopping center (Moscow, Russia) after refusing to remove the bag of the Thor Steinar brand, widely associated with the far-right subculture.
The investigation interpreted these episodes as evidence of the creation of an “extremist community,” whose members allegedly planned attacks “motivated by hatred of a social group.”
Detentions and pressure
Despite the fact that the episodes date back to 2021-2022, the detentions took place only in the summer of 2024. Yakimenko was detained in Rostov-on-Don, where he studied at the university, and placed in a pre-trial detention center. The rest of the defendants were initially under house arrest or recognizance not to leave.
According to No Future, the special services have been monitoring the activities of the defendants for a long time. They had been communicating since 2019.
Also, No Future and the Antifaru channel report that violence was used against young people during the arrest and the investigation. At least one of the defendants was tortured with a stun gun.
It is reported that the security forces pressed them to give up the assistance of lawyers, threatening with a harsher punishment, claiming “If you have a lawyer, you will go to jail immediately and that for a long time,” representatives of the special services were quoted as saying.
In December 2025, Yakimenko was taken to court with a broken arm. The circumstances of the injury remain unknown.
“Pro-Ukrainian anarcho-Marxism” and expertise
In a separate section of the accusation, the participants of Antifa United were said to profess “pro-Ukrainian anarcho-Marxism.” That legal basis relied on the conclusions of expert Roman Silantyev, whose analyses have previously been used in several politically sensitive cases.
Silantyev pointed out that the group is “pro-Ukrainian”, referring to the testimony of one of the defendants, and Yakimenko’s alleged Ukrainian origin. Yakymenko himself categorically denied any connection with Ukraine, stating that he had never been there. He also explained that the tattoo with the inscription “Сичь” (Sich, written in Russian) had nothing to do with the “Запорізька Січ” (Zaporizhzhian Sich, written in Ukrainian), but represented the Don’s Russian symbols associated with the territories along the Don River.)
“Silantyev’s qualification is dubious and unworthy of discussion ” Yakimenko argued in court. However, the judges rejected his arguments.
Blood pressure and confessions
Popov and Chizhikov pleaded guilty. At the same time, Chizhikov stated in court that he testified under the dictation of the investigator, but formally did not refuse it.
The investigation claimed that Yakimenko was engaged in the administration of the Antifa United. He denied this, pointing out that he was only a subscriber, and one of the publications imputed to him was posted at the time when he was in the Omsk pre-trial detention center.
Death of the defendant
Matvey Ostrovsky died during the consideration of the case. The official causes of death were not disclosed. Despite this, the court found him guilty and terminated the criminal prosecution on non-rehabilitative grounds.
Verdict
The court imposed real terms of imprisonment – up to 9 years in prison. Actions motivated by an anti-fascist position and directed, according to the defendants, against manifestations of neo-Nazism, were qualified as the creation of an extremist community.
The factual circumstances of the case reveal several indicators suggesting potential political motivation, including:
- an expansive interpretation of anti-extremism legislation;
- the reliance on disputed or controversial expert examinations;
- allegations of torture and other forms of pressure exerted on the accused; and
- a significant temporal gap between the alleged incidents and the subsequent arrests.”
The Antifa United case is an example among many of how anti-extremist norms of the Russian law are abusively applied.
Russia’s anti-fascism and the Antifa United
Anti-fascism in Russia did not begin as a grassroots movement the way it later appeared in Western Europe. It emerged mainly as a state ideology in the Soviet Union, especially during the 1930s–1940s.
After 1989–1991, the official Soviet anti-fascist ideology did not disappear; it changed form and meaning as the Soviet system collapsed. Instead of being a purely communist ideological doctrine, it gradually became a state narrative about World War II, national unity, and legitimacy in post-Soviet Russia.
In the 1990s, Russian anti-fascism declined as a state ideology while grassroots antifa movements started to rise. In the 2000s, Putin revived the ideology as a state patriotic narrative centered on Moscow’s victory of the Great Patriotic WWII. In the last 15 years, Putin has increasingly used anti-fascism in politics, historical memory laws and foreign rhetoric.
Antifa United is the name of a closed group on the social network VKontakte, which served as a showcase for the online store of the clothing brand of the same name. It sought to popularize anti-fascist ideas among youth subcultures.
Antifa United, as a Russian anti-fascist network, has been operating since about 2020, mostly online. It grew out of the broader Russian antifa subculture, rather than as part or a dissident group of state anti-fascism.
In April 2024, the Astra telegram channel reported that the Moscow Center “E” (Federal Center for Countering Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia) had launched an investigation about the closed VKontakte group Antifa United, which consists of more than 4.5 thousand people. The authorities then started to conduct arrests and charged members with organizing an extremist community.
The group as such is now banned and widely considered dissolved in Russia.
Source of the information: OVD-Info (Russia)
Photo credit: OVD-Info
