As well as still being a minor, Balazeykin suffers from autoimmune hepatitis, an incurable disease that has begun to worsen significantly during the eight months he’s now spent in detention.
Balazeykin was detained late on 28 February after he threw a bottle containing a flammable liquid at a military recruitment office in the town of Kirovsk, in Russia’s northwestern St. Petersburg region. The bottle shattered, the liquid spilled but nothing caught fire. The damage was limited to a few stains on the wall.
Initially charged with deliberate damage to property, Balazeykin was interrogated for the first time in the presence of a state-appointed lawyer as his parents hadn’t yet had time to hire anyone. After questioning him, however, investigators decided to charge him under far more serious anti-terrorism legislation instead, and promptly arrested him.