A local historian from Tatarstan has been sentenced over an anti-war post and an appeal by the ‘Freedom of Russia’ legion.

On 28 April, the Central District Military Court sentenced 71-year-old Fazyl Valiahmetov to six years in a penal colony on charges of repeated 'discrediting' of the army (Article 280.3, Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code) and 'justifying terrorism' (Article 205.2, Part 2). Valiahmetov’s relatives told OVD-Info about the verdict.

He was also banned from administering websites for three and a half years.

The local historian was accused of 'discrediting' because of a post he made in Tatar on VKontakte in which he condemned the war.

“There is globalisation happening on the planet, borders are practically being erased (for example, in Europe). You can live where you like, buy land, a house, start your own business, and so on. Still, for this there’s no need to seize any country, to create new borders, …> destroying cities, killing tens of thousands of people. It means ordinary people don’t need this. This particular grief seems only necessary for 'politicians' in order to show off, to boast that they have done something, to use the basest human instincts of scoundrels, and to keep their grip on power, playing with those instincts,” the post read.

Valiahmetov faced the charge of 'justifying terrorism' for sharing a video address from the 'Freedom of Russia' Legion to Russian citizens.

• The local historian was detained in December 2024. He was sent to a pre-trial detention facility at that time, despite suffering from stage 3 hypertension, which his lawyer said should have prevented him from being held in custody.
• Initially, the elderly historian was accused of 'discrediting' the army because of five posts. In one of them he wrote: “Why do people kill others or die themselves in wars? Not enough food? No clothing? Not enough land? Don’t want to raise and educate children? Don’t want to enjoy retirement? Or maybe they are just lacking brains in their heads.” In the final charge, only one episode remained.
• Valiahmetov is a veteran of the Tatar national movement. In 1991, he took part in a political hunger strike for Tatarstan’s sovereignty and against the holding of Russian presidential elections in the republic. From 1991 to 2004, he was a correspondent for the newspaper “Voice of Bugulma,” and in 2004 he opened a museum-library dedicated to the repressed Tatar public figure and Turkic historian Hadi Atlasi.