A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a stand-up comedian to nearly six years in prison after convicting him of incitement over a joke about war veterans who lost their legs — a joke that sparked outrage among supporters of President Vladimir Putin’s regime and influential military bloggers. The comedian, Artemy Ostanin, was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison and fined 300,000 rubles, about $3,900.
The ruling in Ostanin’s case is the latest in a series of especially harsh sentences handed down to those accused by Russian authorities of spreading slander or falsehoods about the Russian army amid the war in Ukraine. Ostanin was also convicted of offending the feelings of Christians over a joke about Jesus that angered Orthodox nationalists. During the trial, Ostanin argued that his arrest and the treatment he received constituted sufficient punishment for any offense he was accused of and that he therefore should not be sent to prison.
Russia, it should be noted, passed a series of censorship laws in 2022, shortly after sending its army to invade deep into Ukraine. The laws dramatically curtailed what was already limited freedom of expression, including for artists, and since then authorities have imposed numerous prison sentences on those who issued statements deemed anti-war. Figures and organizations aligned with the Kremlin have routinely publicly exposed individuals they believe violated the new censorship laws and reported them to the authorities.
Ostanin’s troubles began after he performed before a small audience in March last year and joked about a poor soldier who returned from the war after losing his legs in a land mine explosion and now had to get around on a skateboard. Ostanin said the soldier ran over his foot while moving through an underground passage in Moscow. In the same performance, he also described a wheelchair as a “stump carrier.”
At the time, Ostanin was not a particularly well-known figure in Russia. In a video of the joke, four fellow comedians sitting on a panel can be seen keeping straight faces, while the laughter of a few audience members is heard in the background. Bloggers and figures from Russia’s nationalist camp who came across the clip spread it widely, turning it viral, and accused Ostanin of crossing a line by mocking soldiers who had risked their lives on the battlefield.
Sorok Sorokov, an influential Orthodox nationalist organization, said many Russians had failed to understand that times had changed and that the state needed to tighten oversight of such performances in order to uproot what it called a “general moral decline.” Georgy Soldatov, head of the organization’s “human rights center,” said that “in recent years, comedians have often crossed red lines and made jokes about topics that are taboo in any normal society.”
Ostanin was alarmed by the backlash to his performance and in March last year tried to flee Russia, but was arrested by police in neighboring Belarus, a close ally of the Kremlin. He was extradited to Moscow and put on trial. On Wednesday, when asked by the judge whether he understood the verdict, Ostanin replied, “To hell with your judicial practice. No, I don't.”