19-year-old Matvey Yuferov published a video of himself desecrating a sign commemorating a veteran of World War II.
A court in Moscow has sentenced a teenage student to four years behind bars after he was filmed urinating on a sign displaying a portrait of a Russian World War II veteran. He later published the video to his Instagram account.
Yuferov, who studies at the capital’s Russian State University for the Humanities, was found guilty of “rehabilitating Nazism” and will now be in prison until the end of 2025. He was also banned from “the publication of materials” on the internet for five years.
According to the prosecution, on the night of November 25 in Moscow’s Izmaylovo District, Yuferov asked his friend to film him urinating on a picture of Anatoly Frolov and posted it online. The victim in the case was the 69-year-old son of Rolov, who did not ask for damages.
Shortly after the video was published, Yuferov removed it from the internet and recorded an apology video. He was detained shortly after. As well as repenting, the student claimed he was drunk and said that he does not hold Nazi or extremist beliefs.
The law on the rehabilitation of Nazism was toughened earlier this year, shortly after Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny was trialed for defamation of World War II veteran Ignat Artemenko. The new law means that humiliating the dignity or honor of veterans could be punished with up to five years in prison.
This latest event isn’t the first time that a Russian has caused a scandal regarding World War II veterans. Last month, a Russian model was forced to publicly apologize for filming a kiss with friend Anna Mikheeva in front of Moscow’s Eternal Flame, a sacred war memorial to the Soviet Union’s casualties in World War II, located near the Kremlin in the center of the capital.