{"id":554311,"date":"2025-11-07T03:55:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/554311\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T03:55:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:55:18","slug":"a-russian-medical-student-read-about-ukraines-azov-regiment-while-riding-the-bus-within-hours-federal-agents-arrested-him-for-an-illegal-internet-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/554311\/","title":{"rendered":"A Russian medical student read about Ukraine\u2019s Azov Regiment while riding the\u00a0bus. Within hours, federal agents arrested him for an\u00a0\u2018illegal Internet search.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

One fine day in\u00a0late September, a\u00a0medical student named Sergey was riding the bus to\u00a0work in\u00a0Kamensk-Uralsky, browsing the Internet on\u00a0his phone. He\u00a0came across some photos showing the insignia of\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s Azov Regiment and the pro-Kyiv paramilitary group known as\u00a0the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK). \u201cWho are those guys again?\u201d Sergey asked himself. He\u00a0satisfied his curiosity with a\u00a0quick bit of\u00a0reading and pocketed his phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Federal agents later arrested Sergey on\u00a0charges of\u00a0violating Russia\u2019s newly enacted ban on\u00a0seeking out \u201cextremist\u201d content. Both Azov and RDK are banned organizations in\u00a0Russia. Sergey confessed to\u00a0the online search and was released.<\/p>\n

The medical student\u2019s case came before a\u00a0judge on\u00a0October 10. The first of\u00a0two hearings began on\u00a0October 14, when defense attorneys asked that the court summon the Federal Security Service officers who took Sergey\u2019s statement. On\u00a0November 6, when the two agents failed to\u00a0appear in\u00a0court, the judge sent the case back to\u00a0the police, ruling that officials had failed to\u00a0show Sergey acted with malicious intent \u2014 a\u00a0key element of\u00a0the law enacted on\u00a0September 1.<\/p>\n

The crime of\u00a0reading A new Russian law will ban not just posting \u2018extremist\u2019 content but simply searching for and accessing it<\/a><\/p>\n

Russia regularly prosecutes citizens for illegal political speech. The most striking thing about Sergey\u2019s arrest isn\u2019t that it\u00a0happened, but how quickly it\u00a0was possible. The FSB had him in\u00a0custody just a\u00a0few hours after he\u00a0read about Azov and RDK on\u00a0his phone. According to\u00a0the news outlet Agentstvo<\/a>, the Internet browsing data likely came from Sergey\u2019s mobile provider, T2.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Russia has only recently begun enforcing the ban on\u00a0\u201cextremist searches,\u201d and while there are perennial questions about how selectively the police will act, Sergey\u2019s case shows that Internet surveillance can respond almost instantly. Yevgeny Smirnov, a\u00a0lawyer at\u00a0the human rights group Department One, told Agentstvo that prosecutions under this new statute could become widespread if\u00a0telecoms like T2 continue forwarding customers\u2019 browsing data to\u00a0law enforcement.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0a\u00a0cabinet meeting this summer, Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev assured President Putin that the law would not be\u00a0used against Russians who accidentally stumble across prohibited \u201cextremist\u201d materials. Where a\u00a0person\u2019s intent is\u00a0more opaque, however, it\u00a0seems a\u00a0visit from the FSB might be\u00a0in\u00a0order.<\/p>\n

Cover photo: Sergey Bobylev \/ TASS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One fine day in\u00a0late September, a\u00a0medical student named Sergey was riding the bus to\u00a0work in\u00a0Kamensk-Uralsky, browsing the Internet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657,7888,7883,7886,7875,7868,7880,7870,7881,7887,7876,7864,7871,7865,7873,7874,7866,7869,7867,7885,7879,7872,7884,7882,7878,7877],"class_list":{"0":"post-554311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine","11":"tag-7888","12":"tag-7883","13":"tag-7886","14":"tag-7875","15":"tag-7868","16":"tag-7880","17":"tag-7870","18":"tag-7881","19":"tag-7887","20":"tag-7876","21":"tag-7864","22":"tag-7871","23":"tag-7865","24":"tag-7873","25":"tag-7874","26":"tag-7866","27":"tag-7869","28":"tag-7867","29":"tag-7885","30":"tag-7879","31":"tag-7872","32":"tag-7884","33":"tag-7882","34":"tag-7878","35":"tag-7877"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115506401977343035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}