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A Russian slapstick comedian was despatched to a penal colony for nearly six years Wednesday for a joke a couple of struggle veteran who misplaced his legs, the most recent conviction in a sweeping crackdown on those that query the struggle in Ukraine.
Moscow-based Artemy Ostanin advised a narrative on stage final yr about bumping right into a disabled ex-soldier on the metro, who he known as a “legless skater.”
Professional-Kremlin figures and media shops unfold a clip of the joke on-line, calling for the comedian to be punished for insulting Russian troopers wounded within the struggle in Ukraine.
A Moscow court docket additionally discovered Ostanin responsible of inciting hatred and insulting non secular emotions over a separate joke about faith.
“The ultimate sentence for Ostanin is imprisonment for 5 years and 9 months in a basic regime penal colony,” choose Olesya Mendeleyeva was quoted as saying by Russian state information company RIA Novosti.
Ostanin, 29, denied that the joke alluded to veterans of the “particular navy operation” — Moscow’s time period for the struggle in Ukraine.
“I hope nobody ever finds themselves in the identical state of affairs of brutal authorized abuse that I did,” he stated in his closing assertion in court docket, in keeping with Russia’s unbiased SOTA media outlet.
The choose who handed down Ostanin’s sentence was sanctioned by the United States Treasury in December 2024 for her function in what the division known as “the arbitrary detention” of Moscow metropolis councilor Alexei Gorinov for voicing his opposition to the struggle in opposition to Ukraine.
Anastasia Barashkova / REUTERS 
After Ostanin’s arrest final yr, he was added to Moscow’s checklist of terrorists and extremists, labels routinely utilized by Russia to stifle dissent and goal opponents.
Russia has massively ramped up a marketing campaign of silencing critics since launching its offensive on Ukraine in 2022.
Final November, a Russian court docket sentenced Diana Loginova, an 18-year-old avenue musician who carried out anti-war songs, to jail for a 3rd time.
In 2024, a physician accused of criticizing the struggle in Ukraine in entrance of a affected person was convicted of spreading false details about the Russian navy and sentenced to five 1/2 years in jail.
In November 2023, Russia positioned Ukrainian singer Susana Jamaladinova on its wished checklist for related alleged crimes. That very same month, a Russian court docket sentenced artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko to seven years in jail for swapping grocery store value tags with antiwar messages.
In April 2023, a Russian court docket sentenced outstanding opposition determine and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in a high-security jail on fees of treason for criticizing Russia’s struggle in Ukraine.
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