On 19 December, the Liublin district court sentenced Nesterenko, an associate professor in the faculty of philosophy at the Moscow state technical university, to three years, Mediazona stated in its introduction. The 62-year-old lecturer has been in custody since September 2024 because he saved on his page on VKontakte [a Russian language site similar to facebook] a clip of the songs “We are growing” by Voply Vidopliassov [Screams of Vidopliassov, a Ukrainian rock-and-roll band], “We were born at a great time” [a Ukrainian nationalist anthem] and “Bandera is our father, Ukraine our mother” [a Ukrainian song that Nesterenko denies having circulated]. Experts saw in these songs “evidence of incitement to violent actions against Russians, as a group defined by nationality” and “to the destruction of Russians as military opponents”.
To start with, Nesterenko was accused of “inciting hatred or antipathy” [Article 282:2 of the Russian criminal code] and “advocating extremism” [Article 280:2]. But in court the prosecutor said that the first charge was “unnecessary”, and asked that Nesterenko be sent to a prison colony for four years on the second charge. Before sentencing, Nesterenko made a final statement, which we reproduce here in full.
To start with, Nesterenko was accused of “inciting hatred or antipathy” [Article 282:2 of the Russian criminal code] and “advocating extremism” [Article 280:2]. But in court the prosecutor said that the first charge was “unnecessary”, and asked that Nesterenko be sent to a prison colony for four years on the second charge. Before sentencing, Nesterenko made a final statement, which we reproduce here in full.
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| Aleksandr Nesterenko in court |
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I hope that this statement is my last in this auditorium, but not my last all together. To start with, I wish everyone here a happy Christmas, with hopes of miracles and of changes for the better. About this, there’s [Iosif] Brodsky’s poetry: the stronger is Herod, the more certain the inevitable wonder.[1] We’re putting our hopes on that.
In the late 80s and the 90s, if someone had said that there would be political prisoners in Russia again, that the sentences for saying things would be longer than they are for murder, I would have thought that that person was insane.
But here I am, already in my second year in prison, because, among the 400 or so songs in many of the world’s languages on my VKontakte playlist, are a few in Ukrainian. That was the basis for my arrest on charges of “inciting hatred or antipathy”. This “incitement” was against Russians: the charges passed over the Russian Federation’s many other nationalities in silence, as second-class citizens not even worth a mention. It wasn’t specified who I incited to hatred and antipathy against Russians, but it’s not hard to guess that they had in mind people who speak Ukrainian.
At the last minute, without any explanation, the charges on which I have been held behind bars for two years, as a terrorist and extremist, were dropped. It turned out that the impression created, of a whirlwind of activity on my case by dozens of law enforcement officers, was all in vain. They undertook search operations, prepared expertise and made investigations of my case … instead of defending citizens from actual terrorists. And now I am charged only with advocating extremist activity.
Both songs that are mentioned in the charges – the third one [“Bandera is our father, Ukraine our mother”] is not, and never was, in my playlist – have lyrics written a hundred years ago. They have nothing whatever to do with the Russian Federation, nor with Russians, nor with the current world situation. I am not their author and I didn’t perform them. I didn’t put them on line. No-one has designated them extremist or included them in lists of banned items, and none of the social media channels have blocked them. They are right there, being listened to by other VKontakte users, from whom I took them, to add to my playlist for future study, to follow up on my research interests. Which, in case anyone is interested, are: imagined communities, historical memory, group identities, historical narratives and similar subjects.
In other words, the charges under the relevant Article of the criminal code do not fit with the circumstances of the case. They are unlawful.
What has happened to me, and to other prisoners of conscience, demonstrates clearly this government’s real character. It is based on lies and violence. Its aim is to force us to become sheep, marching to the beat of drums made from our own skins. But in spite of the merciless repression, in Russia there were and there are people who have not renounced their ideals, their truths, because only those truths are worthy of devoting their lives to. And for me it’s a great honour that, by the will of fate, I now stand by side with these wonderful people.
I admit, in full, my guilt, in that to preserve your power, you are ready to commit any crime. I am guilty of not being among those heroes who were thrown into dungeons right at the start, for being faithful to their ideals. Because, unlike them, I, like many of us, had not found for myself the answer to the question, “what can I do?”. Now I know the answer to that, and I hope I have the moral right to say what it is.
First, however banal this sounds: there is no need to be afraid. They want to terrify us, because any power is itself afraid, above all, of its own people. But they can not put half the country in prison. If we all stop being afraid, then no cough will stop us from yelling out the truth: the emperor has no clothes.
Second, no-one can force us to obey criminal orders. We carry them out by our own free will, always finding justifications for our timidity, instead of courageously and honestly doing the duty required by our conscience.
The only way to defy spiritual freedom is to retain freedom in your own soul. Because freedom isn’t external, it is inside us. In detention I have become freer, because in prison you feel more intensely genuine freedom – freedom of the soul.
In conclusion, I would like to mention some beautiful fairy tales, rays of light in the darkness that is swallowing us: Dragon by [the Soviet-era writer Evgeny] Shvarts, The Giant Cockroach by Korney Chukovsky [a children’s poem, published in 1921], Tamara Gabbe’s City of Masters [a cycle of plays, 1943], Tales of Cipollino by Gianni Rodari [Italian children’s stories, 1951] and Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow these publications were denounced by some Grima Wormtongue [a character of Tolkien’s] or Unter Prishibeev [hero of a story by Anton Chekhov, an army officer who even in civvies interferes in everyone’s business and tells them who is in charge]. I wouldn’t be surprised if these tales were found to advocate extremist activities, and their authors were added to the notorious list of extremists and terrorists, on which I too have been lucky enough to land. [Nesterenko was added to the register of extremists and terrorists in December 2024.]
Finally: we must not forget that, whatever the circumstances, our fate and our future lies only in our hands. It depends on us ourselves, no-one else, what we do with our lives: vegetate, or achieve moral victory. Thank you for your attention.
🔴 Aleksandr Nesterenko’s trial reported by Novaya Gazeta Evropa
🔴 Just published (November 2025): Voices Against Putin’s War: protesters’ defiant speeches in Russian courts. Information here. Readings of courtroom speeches on film here: Try Me For Treason. There will be another reading in London on Thursday 5 February, information here.
[1] Here Aleksandr Nesterenko quoted “December 24, 1971” by Iosif Brodsky, the Nobel-prize-winning Russian-American poet, who wrote a poem each Christmas for many years. The relevant lines are “Herod reigns but the stronger he is, the more sure, the more certain the wonder“ («Знал бы Ирод, что чем он сильней, тем верней, неизбежнее чудо»).
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