A resident of Pskov Region has been sentenced to five years in prison for a comment in support of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK).

40-year-old Andrey Gneushev has been sentenced to five years and one month in a general regime penal colony for “justifying terrorism” (part 2, article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) over a comment in support of the “Russian Volunteer Corps”. A relative told OVD-Info about the verdict.

The sentence was handed down by the 1st Western District Military Court on 27 January.

According to the prosecution, on 12 May 2023, Gneushev posted the following comment in the Telegram chat “Indefinite Protest Chat | SPB”: “The rabid hatred of the ruske intelligentsia towards those actually doing something, like the RDC, and towards those who openly support them, like Shipitsyn, is nothing more than the banal envy of lazy, cowardly failures who use pacifism to justify their own laziness, mediocrity and cowardice.”

The comment was in response to another user’s message about an attack by St Petersburg-based activist Vladislav Shipitsyn, who covered publicist Viktor Shenderovich in ketchup.

The bill of indictment (a copy of which is held by OVD-Info) states that the chat was public and “at least two people” saw the comment.

Gneushev pleaded guilty. In his testimony, he said that since 2021 he had posted comments criticising the Russian authorities and supporters of the invasion of Ukraine.

The case was initiated in August 2025. Before sentencing, he was under a travel ban.

Gneushev’s relative said he was the family’s sole breadwinner in recent times. His wife was dismissed from her job in October over the case against her husband. The couple have five children. According to the relative, during the investigation he was threatened that the children would be taken by child protection services and the family’s dog would be shot in front of them. For the past five years, Gneushev and his family have lived in a village in Pskov Oblast, a region in north-west Russia near the Baltic states.

• Gneushev is originally from St Petersburg. Local media had previously mentioned him as the former partner of local activist Yelena Grigoryeva, who participated in rallies for LGBTQ+ rights, against torture and for the return of Crimea to Ukraine. In 2019, after their separation, she was murdered. A household appliances store employee confessed to the killing, claiming he attacked Grigoryeva during a drunken row. Human rights defenders criticised the investigators’ work, insisting they had not properly considered a hate crime motive—Grigoryeva had received threats due to her LGBTQ+ identity.