Former leader of Young Russia Maxim Mishchenko was sentenced to two and a half years in prison

The Novomoskovsky District Court of the Tula Region found the former leader of the Young Russia movement and former Deputy Minister of Internal Policy and Local Government Development of the region Maxim Mishchenko guilty of fraud and sentenced him to two and a half years in a general regime colony, writes the Tula News publication.

The court regarded the defendant's arguments about completing military service as a deliberate attempt to evade responsibility and not be punished.

As a result, Mishchenko was sentenced to two years and six months in prison with a fine of 80 thousand rubles. He was also deprived of the right to hold positions in government bodies for three years. The prosecution representative asked that Mishchenko be sentenced to two years in prison and be deprived of state awards.

The court took into account the second disability group of another person involved in the case, Gennady Efimov, and sentenced him to one and a half years of suspended imprisonment. They and Mishchenko were accused under Part 3 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud committed by a person using his official position, as well as on a large scale).

Maxim Mishchenko led the pro-Kremlin movement “Young Russia” until September 2010. He was a deputy of the State Duma of the fifth convocation from United Russia, as well as a member of the Public Chamber. Then he took the post of Deputy Minister for Internal Policy of the Tula Region and was responsible for working with NGOs.

According to investigators, Mishchenko entered into a conspiracy with the head of the NGO “Union for the Protection of Disabled Persons and Participants in Liquidation of the Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident” in Novomoskovsk, Gennady Efimov: he applied for a grant of 650 thousand rubles to hold a conference of the Chernobyl program; the money was transferred, but the event did not take place. In September 2015, Mishchenko had to resign, at which time the contracting firms returned the money to Efimov’s accounts, and he transferred it to the budget. The case against Mishchenko was opened in November of the same year; it was based on documents received from the government of the Tula region.

After the initiation of the case, Mishchenko went to serve under a contract in the Airborne Forces communications regiment.

Under his leadership, the pro-Kremlin Young Russia collaborated with the far-right organizations Russian Image and Russian Verdict. “Russian Image” was founded by neo-Nazis Ilya Goryachev (sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015 for creating BORN, the Fighting Organization of Russian Nationalists) and Nikita Tikhonov (sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova). “Russian Image” and “Young Russia” held joint rallies. “Russian Image is not a fascist organization, although they have tough rhetoric. In some ways our views are the same, for example, on the problems of illegal migration, but in others they differ,” Mishchenko himself explained then.

Mediazona wrote in detail about the connections of the leader of Young Russia with neo-Nazis from the immediate circle of BORN. Mishchenko, in particular, sent parliamentary inquiries at the request of the organization’s ideologist Ilya Goryachev. “I never paid for parliamentary requests; I had friendly relations with Mishchenko. It was lobbying,” Goryachev said at a meeting in the Moscow City Court.

In addition, “Young Russia” is remembered for the events it organized to collect donor blood on Triumfalnaya Square on the last days of each month - on the same days when opposition activists carried out the uncoordinated “Strategy-31” there.