On May 30, 2025, a court in Naryan-Mar sentenced 27-year-old librarian Konstantin Ledkov from the village of Krasnoye to 5.5 years in a general regime penal colony. He was convicted under three criminal charges: “discrediting the Russian army,” “repeated demonstration of Nazi symbolism,” and “inciting activities that threaten state security.”
The reasons for his prosecution were, on the surface, trivial. One of the charges was based on him shouting “Slava Ukraini! Heroyam Slava!” ("Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!") in a local bar. This led to a beating by fellow villagers and a formal denunciation. Another accusation stemmed from a repost of a video by Ukrainian blogger Volodymyr Zolkin, featuring a Russian Mi-8 pilot who had defected to Ukraine. He was also charged for reposting a video titled “How Nazism was Reincarnated in Russia.”
Complaints came not only from villagers. One was filed by 41-year-old math and computer science teacher Hryhoriy Zhdanov from a local college, who reported Ledkov’s social media posts to the FSB, labeling them a threat to national security.
It wasn't Ledkov’s first time under scrutiny. In September 2022, he was fined 50,000 rubles for spray-painting “No to war” on a garage wall. His social media posts also included an image of Crimea overlaid with the Ukrainian flag and the caption “Crimea is Ukraine.”
In January 2024, authorities came after him again—this time for allegedly “insulting the singer Shaman.” The supposed offense was a repost of an image from a music video, allegedly altered with “banned symbols.”
But the story didn’t end with Konstantin. His father, 59-year-old Valery Ledkov, an ethnographer and expert in Ob-Ugric folklore, is also facing criminal charges. He was placed under house arrest for "financing an extremist organization" after transferring 300 rubles (about $3.30) to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).
Ledkov’s lawyer emphasized that none of his actions promoted violence or posed any actual threat to national security. Instead, his words and reposts were political expressions protected under the Russian Constitution.
The court disagreed.
✍️ Author’s note
The story of Konstantin Ledkov is more than just one man’s misfortune. It’s a chilling reflection of a system that fears its own people. In a country where a librarian can be imprisoned for a phrase and a repost, and his father for donating three hundred rubles, justice becomes a tool of intimidation rather than protection.
The irony stings: a man dedicated to knowledge and culture is punished not for what he’s done—but for what he dared to say. For expressing thoughts. For having them.
In today’s Russia, it is dangerous to speak. Dangerous to stay silent. Dangerous even to think.
