Russia jails US-Russian citizen for 3.5 years for 'rehabilitating Nazism'

A man with dual US-Russian nationality was sentenced by a Russian court on Wednesday to three-and-a-half years in prison on charges of "rehabilitating Nazism."

Yuri Malev was arrested last December over social media posts in which he was alleged to have denigrated the Saint George's ribbon, a symbol of Russian military valor. One contained obscene language and the other showed a picture of a corpse wearing the ribbon with a caption saying "How to wear the Saint George's ribbon correctly."

The court in St Petersburg, where Malev was tried, said this showed disrespect for society and insulted the memory of the Great Patriotic War, as Russians refer to World War Two.

Malev admitted guilt, the court said. A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Moscow did not immediately reply to a request for comment on his conviction.

The independent SOTA news outlet said Malev was a graduate of the law faculty of St Petersburg University and had lived in the United States since 1991.

Baza, a Telegram channel with links to Russian law enforcement, said Malev was a resident of Brooklyn, New York. It said he had entered Russia by bus from Estonia two weeks prior to his arrest.

Reuters