Russia sentences comedian to five years in prison over veteran joke

A Moscow court has sentenced Russian stand up comedian Artemy Ostanin to more than five years in a penal colony.

The 29-year-old was convicted of inciting hatred after performing a comedy routine that mocked a disabled war veteran. Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva said Ostanin would serve five years and nine months in a general regime penal colony, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti.

Read also: Russian Embassy calls for stronger Nigeria–Russia legal cooperation

The case centred on a 2025 performance in which Ostanin joked about a man who had lost his legs in a wartime explosion and used a skateboard to move around, referring to him as a “legless skater”. A video of the routine spread widely online and triggered anger among nationalist commentators, who accused the comedian of insulting soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

Read also:Donetsk deadlock blocks hopes of Russia-Ukraine peace deal

Prosecutors argued that the joke amounted to hatred towards veterans and the armed forces. Ostanin denied this, saying the routine did not refer to Russian soldiers involved in the war in Ukraine.

He was also found guilty of offending religious believers over a separate joke about Jesus, which drew complaints from Orthodox activists.

Ostanin was arrested last March while attempting to flee to Belarus. Alongside his prison sentence, the court fined him 300,000 roubles, and added him to a government register of designated terrorists and extremists, a label often applied to political opponents and critics of the state.

In a final statement to the court, Ostanin described the case as an abuse of power. “I hope no one ever finds themselves in the same situation of brutal legal abuse that I did,” he said. Asked if he understood the verdict, he replied, “To hell with your judicial practice. No, I don’t,” according to Reuters.

Read also: US seizes Russia-flagged tanker linked to Venezuela

The human rights group Memorial condemned the prosecution, saying it reflected a broader pattern of repression.
“This case shows how vague extremism and blasphemy laws are used to silence speech, intimidate artists and punish humour,” the group said in a statement on X.