MOSCOW, Russia — A Russian court sentenced far-left activist Sergei Udaltsov to six years in prison after finding him guilty of a “justifying terrorism” charge, local media reported on Thursday.
Udaltsov, who has been in pre-trial detention since January 2024, would appeal the verdict and announced he was going on a hunger strike, Interfax news agency reported.
“Udaltsov is sentenced to six years in prison,” the judge at Moscow’s Second Western district military court announced, according to Interfax.
The 48-year-old would serve the sentence at a maximum-security penal colony.
Moscow has hugely stepped up a crackdown on opposition and free speech since launching its offensive in Ukraine in 2022 and regularly accuses anyone deemed not to toe the official line of “justifying terrorism”.
The prosecution had sought a seven-year prison sentence while Udaltsov’s defence team had argued he should be acquitted.
The exact accusations in Udaltsov’s case are classified, but he said at an earlier court hearing that he is accused of voicing support online for Marxist activists charged with organising a “terrorist” group in the central Russian city of Ufa.
He was one of the opposition leaders who spoke at mass protests over President Vladimir Putin’s re-election in 2012. He was jailed in 2014 for organising “mass riots” and spent three years in prison.
But he has expressed public support for Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine and said he opposed Putin from a patriotic stance.
Udaltsov is an ardent admirer of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and has called for the reinstatement of the Soviet Union.
He told the independent TV Rain channel in 2012 that “Stalin wasn’t a criminal” and has been arrested and fined numerous times for holding memorial ceremonies on Stalin’s birthday.
Source: Russian court sentences far-left activist to six years in prison
