Comedian receives almost six years in prison in Russia for joke about war veteran

A Russian comedian was sent to a penal colony for nearly six years on Wednesday for a joke about a war veteran who lost his legs, the latest conviction in a wide-ranging crackdown on those who question the war in Ukraine.

Moscow-based Artemy Ostanin told a story on stage last year about his encounter with a disabled former soldier on the subway, whom he called a “legless skater.”

Pro-Kremlin figures and media outlets spread a clip of the joke online, calling for the comedian to be punished for insulting Russian soldiers injured in the war in ukraine.

A Moscow court also found Ostanin guilty of inciting hatred and insulting religious feelings for another joke about religion.

“The final sentence for Ostanin is a prison sentence of five years and nine months in a general penal colony,” said judge Olesya Mendeleyeva, quoted by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Ostanin, 29, denied that the joke referred to veterans of the “special military operation,” as Moscow calls the war in Ukraine.

“I hope that no one will ever find themselves in the same situation of brutal legal abuse as me,” he said in his final statement to the court, according to independent Russian media outlet SOTA.

The judge who handed down Ostanin’s sentence was sanctioned by the US Treasury in December 2024 for her role in what the department called “the arbitrary detention” of the Moscow city councilman. Alexei Gorinov for expressing his opposition to the war against Ukraine.

After Ostanin’s arrest last year, he was added to Moscow’s list of terrorists and extremists, labels Russia routinely uses to suppress dissent and attack opponents.

Russia has greatly escalated a campaign to silence critics since launching its offensive against Ukraine in 2022.

Last November, a Russian court Diana Loginova sentencedan 18-year-old street musician who performed anti-war songs, to prison for the third time.

In 2024, a doctor accused of criticizing the war in Ukraine in front of a patient was found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian military and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison.

In November 2023, Russia included Ukrainian singer Susana Jamaladinova on its list of people wanted for alleged similar crimes. That same month, a A Russian court sentenced the artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko to seven years in prison for exchanging supermarket price tags with anti war messages.

In April 2023, a Russian court convicted a prominent journalist and opposition figure. Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in a high-security prison accused of treason for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine.