At the St. Petersburg legal forum, Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, delivered a lecture that the source describes as a brief retelling preserving the meaning and context of his remarks, though some passages may have been edited or rearranged.
Bastrykin said that online games are being used as a means of recruiting teenagers for acts of sabotage and terrorism. According to him, a recruiter’s task is to present an arson attack on a military enlistment office as participation in a “cool game” in real life.
He also said that he had previously proposed lowering the age of criminal liability to 12, but that proposal was not supported. Bastrykin separately argued for lowering the age of liability for drug stash couriers and for introducing criminal liability for parents over crimes committed by their children.
The Investigative Committee chief also recalled that he had repeatedly called for the return of the death penalty, but, in his words, had received no backing. He criticized Rosmolodezh, saying the agency “does nothing, only receives grants,” and proposed reviving structures analogous to the Young Octobrists, Young Pioneers, and Komsomol under different names.
Another proposal from Bastrykin was to place participants in the special military operation in schools as deputy principals for воспитательной work, and to replace the “Important Conversations” classes with “lessons in courage” led by military personnel.
After his speech, Bastrykin read his own poem beginning with the line, “I want to go back to the Union,” in which he speaks of wanting to return to the USSR, renounce “all freedoms,” mortgages, rising prices, and inflation, and regain a world built on labor, equality, brotherhood, and faith in justice.
The source notes that the poem was reproduced in full at the forum.