The Leninsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced activist Yaroslav Kostrov to 10 days of arrest under the article on displaying “extremist” symbols — Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code. Mediazona’s correspondent reported this from the courtroom.
The case stemmed from a 2021 campaign leaflet posted on VKontakte that included links to Instagram and Facebook as well as the logos of those social networks. According to lawyer Irina Bakhanovich, the post appeared in the group “Tsentralny District for a Comfortable Living Environment,” which Kostrov does not administer.
Kostrov did not admit guilt. In court, he said his colleagues had checked the post and found no photograph there. He also stressed that such posts can only be edited within five years, meaning it is no longer possible to change it now. Kostrov further repeated that posts published under his name in the group could have been placed there by administrators.
Bakhanovich asked the court to add screenshots of VK pages run by state institutions that contain links to Meta products, and to summon witnesses who had certified the leaflets during the previous campaign. Judge Elena Samsonova rejected those motions.
“There is no corpus delicti in this case,” the lawyer told the court, also referring to Article 54 of the Constitution, which states that a law has no retroactive force.
Kostrov had been detained the day before: he was held for about seven hours at Police Department No. 2 without a report being drawn up, and was then kept there overnight. Kostrov heads the movement “Tsentralny District for a Comfortable Living Environment” and was nominated by A Just Russia for elections to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly in district No. 1. If the ruling takes legal effect, he will be barred from running for office for a year. Earlier, on July 10, urban preservation activist Oleg Mukhin and Ivan Apostolevsky, leader of the Communist faction in the Leningrad Region legislature, were also jailed for 10 days in St. Petersburg on similar accusations over Instagram and Facebook links in VKontakte posts.