A St Petersburg resident is on trial on terrorism-related charges over five comments about Ukraine and the killing of a war correspondent.

The 1st Western District Military Court in St Petersburg has begun hearing the case against Andrey Kurylyov; he is charged under the article on justifying terrorism (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) because of five comments about the war in Ukraine and the killing of Vladlen Tatarsky. This was reported by Mediazona.

The comments were published in 2022 and 2023 on Telegram and VKontakte. For example, under a post about the missile strike on Vinnytsia, Kurylyov wrote: “It’s time to blow up that Crimean Bridge to hell!” And under news of the killing of war reporter Vladlen Tatarsky: “Z—… explodes—good news.” According to the official version, the posts were intended “to incite an indefinite group of people to commit acts of terrorism” and included “a statement recognising terrorist practice as correct, deserving of support and imitation.”

Kurylyov was detained on 17 December 2024 and has been in custody since then. Investigators stated that the “crime” was committed “under non-obvious circumstances,” and therefore required “a large volume of investigative and procedural actions.”

• Andrey Kurylyov is 39 years old; before his arrest, he worked as an assembler of radio-technical equipment.