Closing arguments have ended in Moscow’s Lyublinsky District Court in the case of 62-year-old Bauman Moscow State Technical University lecturer Aleksandr Nesterenko. Prosecutors asked for four years in prison for the philosophy teacher. Nesterenko has been held in pretrial detention since September 2024 after students reported him, and he is charged under Article 282, Part 2, clause “a”; in summer 2025, prosecutors also added Article 280, Part 2.
Investigators say the evidence is his VKontakte playlist, where they found several songs in Ukrainian, as well as the status “Shche ne vmerla Ukraina”. In his final statement, Nesterenko said he neither wrote nor uploaded the songs, that they are not on any banned list, and that they remain freely available on other users’ pages. He noted that two of the songs were written nearly a century ago.
“I have already spent my second year in prison because among the 400 songs in my playlist there are several in Ukrainian,” Nesterenko told the court.
The case materials mention the songs “My Rostem,” “Zapalymo z ranku — Ukraina peremozhe!,” “Zrodylys my velykoi hodyny,” and “Batko nash — Bandera, Ukraina — maty.” The article says the expert report contains contradictory conclusions: one passage says there were no signs of incitement to violence, while another says such signs were present.
Students and an officer from Center “E” testified in court. One student appeared less certain at trial than during the investigation, but confirmed his earlier testimony. Nesterenko’s wife Irina said they married on August 20, 2025, inside the detention center, and that before his arrest she did not believe a person could be prosecuted over their views. In his final statement, Nesterenko said he now knows his answer to what is happening: not to be afraid, not to carry out criminal orders, and not to betray himself.