Garri Azaryan. Photo: Fontanka.ru.
A military court in St. Petersburg has sentenced Kazakh student Garri Azaryan to two years in a penal settlement colony on charges of “publicly justifying terrorism,” Fontanka reported.
The case was heard under a special procedure. Prosecutors had requested a three-year term in a general-regime penal colony, while the defense argued for a fine.
According to investigators, Azaryan called for the violent overthrow of the government. As an aggravating factor, the prosecutor cited the fact that the student made his statements during Russia’s mobilization for the special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine.
In his final statement, Azaryan admitted guilt and expressed remorse. “I want to return to society, to be useful and serve it, to show that I have reformed and am no longer prone to radical, marginal, or destructive actions,” the outlet quoted him as saying.
Azaryan, 23, moved to St. Petersburg from Kazakhstan and completed a bachelor’s degree in political science at St. Petersburg State University before enrolling in a master’s program. In May 2025, he was arrested in a case involving what authorities described as “left-wing radical terrorism.” Investigators said he belonged to a student cell of the group Rabochaya Vlast (Workers’ Power) and at one informal gathering spoke about “revolution, class hatred, and the power of the street.” Fontanka reports that his remarks also included references to “exploiters, bourgeois reformers, the guilt of capitalism, and killings.”
Azaryan spent eight months in pretrial detention and was released under a ban on certain activities in January of this year.
The Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law reported that Azaryan came to the attention of Russian law enforcement after a March 24, 2025 action by members of Workers’ Power. Participants hung a mannequin of the ancient Roman goddess Minerva on a monument to Count Uvarov near St. Petersburg State University, adding a sign reading “Science is dead.”
A source at the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said in April that the Workers’ Power “cell” had formed at the university about a year earlier but only began public activity and protest actions in the spring. “Young revolutionaries, barely 18, created their group with the support of the left-radical Organization of Communist Internationalists, which is part of an international alliance with a management center in the United Kingdom headed by Trotskyist ideologue Alan Woods,” the agency reported.
