Russian man jailed for saying Duma speaker should be ‘hanged right after Putin’

A military court in St. Petersburg has sentenced a resident of Syktyvkar, a city in the Russian Arctic, to three years in prison for “incitement to terrorism” for comments he made on social media critical of the Russian government, the court’s press service told Novaya Gazeta Europe on Monday.

According to the investigation, Yury Orlov commented on a May 2022 Telegram post quoting Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, that “Volodin should be hanged right after Putin”.

Orlov also commented on a video on Russian social network VK in September 2021, criticising the then head of the republic of Komi Vladimir Uyba and Olga Savastyanova, a Duma lawmaker representing Komi, the investigators added.

The prosecutors claimed that Orlov’s comments “called for an attack on the lives of government figures”. He was detained in September and admitted his guilt under interrogation. He was released, though faced restrictions on his movements, and attended court remotely from Syktyvkar, explaining that he was the main caregiver for his elderly mother.

Orlov was fined 30,000 rubles (€300) in September 2023 over another VK comment addressed to Vladimir Putin, saying: “Vladimir, what is Russia doing right? Waging a despicable, aggressive, invasive war? Bombing peaceful cities in Ukraine?” The Komi Supreme Court overturned the ruling on appeal the following month, however, citing insufficient evidence.