On January 12, a support group for St. Petersburg State University student Harry Azaryan reported that his preventive measure had been softened and, instead of detention, a ban on certain actions had been imposed.
Azaryan has been in jail since May 2025.
The 23-year-old student is accused of justifying terrorism on the Internet (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) because of his speech at a meeting of left-wing activists, whom the security forces call members of the Trotskyist organization “Workers’ Power”.
The security forces claimed that Azaryan called for murders “for the sake of attracting attention to the activities of the Workers’ Power cell.”
A Mediazona source said that the content of the speech was different. According to him, the student “essentially repeated the textbook Marxist view” on the development of society: growing contradictions and discontent lead to revolutions that do not occur without violence. “People will take to the streets and kill, there will be no revolution without this,” Azaryan said.
At the same time, he added: “Our task is not to incite hatred, we are not extremists. Our task is to explain to people that capitalism is to blame.”
Activists recorded this speech and posted it on cloud storage. This is probably why the student was charged with the second part of Article 205.2, which concerns statements on the Internet.