A resident of Kostroma who reported being tortured during their arrest has been sentenced to six years in prison over two comments.

The 2nd Western District Military Court has found 42-year-old Roman Gribov guilty of inciting terrorism (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) and extremism (Part 2, Article 280 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by lawyer Nataliya Tikhonova on her Telegram channel.

He has also been banned from posting on the internet for two years.

The sentence was handed down on 1 April.

The lawyer stated: “As an aggravating circumstance, the state prosecutor requested the crimes be recognised as committed during the mobilisation period.”

She said the court ignored all the defence’s arguments and did not consider “the obvious substitution of information on the disks for the operational investigative activities.” Prosecution witnesses during the investigation spoke about Gribov’s opposition views.

According to the investigation, the resident of Kostroma allegedly left two comments on Telegram. Under a news post about a proposal to carry out a demonstration nuclear explosion on Russian territory, he supposedly wrote: “Excellent idea! To make sure everyone is really scared, blow up Moscow with a nuclear bomb, preferably with the [offensive nickname for Putin].” The second comment concerned prisoners who fought with the Wagner Group: “I suggest we execute this category of citizens by shooting or hanging. And forget about the problem.”

Gribov insisted that he did not write these comments. In addition, a linguist expert, on the defence’s request, examined the comments and concluded that they did not contain calls to terrorism or extremism.

• FSB and Centre “E” officers detained the Kostroma resident in July 2025. Gribov said that after his detention, he was beaten and tortured with electric shocks in the building of the regional FSB office. Signs of torture were documented, but the Investigative Committee refused to open a criminal case for abuse of authority (Article 286 of the Criminal Code).
• Gribov’s brother told OVD-Info that the Kostroma resident faced pressure in local pre-trial detention centre SIZO-1. For about two weeks, he shared a cell with two men who threatened him with new criminal cases and with the fate of Maksim Marcinkevich, a neo-Nazi who died in custody, if he did not plead guilty.
• Before his arrest, Gribov worked as a sales manager for automotive oils. In his spare time, he volunteered helping animals at shelters, and three years ago took in a stray puppy and gave it a home.