Yegor Balazeykin, a 17-year-old from St. Petersburg who was sentenced to six years in prison on terror charges for throwing a Molotov cocktail that failed to ignite at a military recruitment office. Photo: Telegram
The number of Russian minors to have been convicted of political crimes has markedly increased since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Friday.
There was a huge rise in the number of minors being prosecuted for sabotage or terrorism — usually arson — and for comments made online that were deemed to be justifying terrorism after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Mediazona said, with the sharpest spike coming in the first half of 2024.
In most cases, the age of criminal liability in Russia is 16, though for some crimes, a conviction can be sought against defendants as young as 14.
The first Russian minor to be charged with treason, Kevin Lick, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, was sentenced to four years in prison in December. He was subsequently exchanged with the West in August alongside 15 other political prisoners jailed in Russia, however.
While just seven schoolchildren were convicted of treason, sabotage, disrupting transport, terrorism and justifying terrorism in the six-month period prior to the war, that figure had risen to 23 by the first half of 2024.
As of September, 93 minors had been added to Russia’s register of terrorists and extremists this year, 20 of whom were under 16. The complete list, which also includes adults, is now growing twice as fast as it was at the beginning of the war.
