A lecturer at Bauman University has been sentenced to three years in prison for Ukrainian songs posted on VKontakte.

The Lyublinsky District Court of Moscow has sentenced former Bauman Moscow State Technical University lecturer Aleksandr Nesterenko to three years in prison on charges of inciting extremism (Part 2, Article 280 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by Mediazona.

The prosecution was based on the publication on VKontakte of the song “Our Father is Bandera, Ukraine is Mother,” the OUN anthem “We Were Born During a Great Hour,” and the music video “We Are Growing” by the band Vopli Vidopliassova. Investigators alleged that Nesterenko had called for violence against Russians and their destruction “as a military adversary.”

At the start of the process, he was also charged with inciting hatred (Article 282 of the Criminal Code), but the prosecutor later dropped this part of the accusation, calling it excessive.

“It wasn’t specified who I was inciting hatred and hostility towards Russians to. But most likely, those who speak Ukrainian. But at the last minute, this article [on inciting hatred] was dropped. It turns out dozens of security officers put on a show of intense activity, carried out investigative actions on my case, instead of protecting citizens from real terrorists,” Nesterenko said in his final statement. He did not plead guilty.

“I fully admit my guilt in the fact that to maintain your power you will commit any crime, [I admit guilt] that I was not among the heroes who were the first to end up behind bars for staying true to their ideals,” said the former lecturer.

Nesterenko is a philosopher and associate professor at the Department of Philosophy, Bauman Moscow State Technical University. He has taken part in local elections and served as a voting member on the electoral commission for the Yabloko party. He was detained in September 2024. In December that same year, he was added to Rosfinmonitoring’s “extremists and terrorists” list.