A Russian military court in Yekaterinburg on May 20 sentenced 27-year-old anarchist Alexey Rozhkov to 16 years in prison for what prosecutors classified as a "terrorist act"—throwing Molotov cocktails at a military recruitment office in March 2022, causing minor damage. The incident, which occurred shortly after the start Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was one of the earliest in a brief string of such actions across Russia in protest against the war.

Initially charged with attempted murder, Rozhkov fled to Kyrgyzstan after being released under a travel restriction order. There, he was detained by local security services, allegedly tortured, and forcibly returned to Russia. Upon his return, prosecutors added charges of "justifying terrorism" and spreading "fake news" about the Russian military, based in part on interviews he gave to exiled media outlets while in Kyrgyzstan.

He is to serve five years in a conventional prison, followed by 11 in a penal colony.

Rozhkov did not deny setting fire to the military office but rejected the terrorism charges. He stated in court that he acted according to his "conscience and moral principles," to protest against the war in Ukraine, emphasizing the nobody was hurt in the attack.

Also May 20, another young anarchist, Ruslan Sidiki, took the stand in his trial at a military court in Ryazan, accused of destroying railway tracks, leading to the derailment of 19 carriages of fertilizer. Arrested in November 2023, Sidiki is also accused of the attempted destruction of military aircraft, on both occasions using GPS-guided drones. He said he undertook the actions to halt the movement of munitions towards the border with Ukraine, and that he took measures to avoid harming humans. He said he rejected the "terrorism" charge, since his "goal was sabotage, not the intimidation of the population." (Freedom News, Meduza, BBC News)

See our last report on on resistance and repression in Russia.