Yekaterinburg man will spend next 20 months under ‘restricted freedom’ because he painted a swastika in an elevator

A court in Yekaterinburg has sentenced Sergei Abakin, a local man, to nearly two years of “restricted freedom” because he painted a swastika on the wall of an elevator in an apartment building, and inscribed a phrase that a judge says amounts to illegal hate speech. For his crime, Abakin will spend 1 year and 8 months under restricted freedom, during which time he will be forbidden from leaving his home between specified hours. He's also not allowed to leave the city or the region.

In an interview with the news website Znak.com, Abakin said he grew fascinated in Nazi Germany because his mother has romantic partners of North Caucasian origins. “As his hatred for his mother's lover grew, he found like-minded thinkers in the supporters of Nazi ideas,” Znak.com writes.

Abakin says his conflicts with his mother's partners led one of the men to contact his brother, who works in the Federal Security Service. Next, Abakin says, a group of masked police agents raided his home, tied him up, and beat him for five hours. They found a firearm in his room and charged him with illegal possession of a deadly weapon. He was later sentenced to 18 months of “restricted freedom” for this separate crime.