The 21 year old from Kazan Mikhail Balabanov has been sentenced in the southern district military court. The young man was found guilty of preparing an "act of terrorism" and was given a custodial sentence of 4 years and 6 months. He will have to spend two of those years in a prison and the rest in a strict regime prison colony. Meanwhile, the court reduced the seriousness of part of the charge against him, not finding a "group of people".
Balabanov was accused of conspiracy with an unspecified agent of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and of preparing an arson attack on a military recruitment office in Nevinnomyssk. Mikhail does not accept the charge against him, and his defence believes that it was FSB agents who corresponded with him. The security forces may have come after the young man after he called the Ukrainian project to help those wishing to surrender, "I want to live" — Mikhail wanted to avoid being sent to the front.
The 21 year old from Kazan Mikhail Balabanov has been sentenced in the southern district military court. The young man was found guilty of preparing an "act of terrorism" and was given a custodial sentence of 4 years and 6 months. He will have to spend two of those years in a prison and the rest in a strict regime prison colony. Meanwhile, the court reduced the seriousness of part of the charge against him, not finding a "group of people".
Balabanov was accused of conspiracy with an unspecified agent of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and of preparing an arson attack on a military recruitment office in Nevinnomyssk. Mikhail does not accept the charge against him, and his defence believes that it was FSB agents who corresponded with him. The security forces may have come after the young man after he called the Ukrainian project to help those wishing to surrender, "I want to live" — Mikhail wanted to avoid being sent to the front.
Under the Sebi Act, the regulator has the power to carry out search and seizure of books, registers, documents including electronics and digital devices from any person associated with the securities market. He adds: "Telegram has become my primary news source." Given the pro-privacy stance of the platform, it’s taken as a given that it’ll be used for a number of reasons, not all of them good. And Telegram has been attached to a fair few scandals related to terrorism, sexual exploitation and crime. Back in 2015, Vox described Telegram as “ISIS’ app of choice,” saying that the platform’s real use is the ability to use channels to distribute material to large groups at once. Telegram has acted to remove public channels affiliated with terrorism, but Pavel Durov reiterated that he had no business snooping on private conversations. The last couple days have exemplified that uncertainty. On Thursday, news emerged that talks in Turkey between the Russia and Ukraine yielded no positive result. But on Friday, Reuters reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin said there had been some “positive shifts” in talks between the two sides. On Feb. 27, however, he admitted from his Russian-language account that "Telegram channels are increasingly becoming a source of unverified information related to Ukrainian events."
from ar
