A Novorossiysk resident has been accused of justifying terrorism.

A military court in Rostov-on-Don will hear the case of a Novorossiysk resident accused of justifying terrorism due to comments he made on a messenger app.

The accused, a 42-year-old resident of Novorossiysk, was investigated by the Investigative Department of the FSB Directorate for Krasnodar Krai. The charge of public justification of terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) carries a sentence of five to seven years in prison.

According to the prosecution, the man, while in Kuban, published text comments from his mobile phone in a messenger channel from January 4, 2023, to February 19, 2024, and on July 9, 2024. Law enforcement officials interpreted these comments as justification of terrorist activity and calls for terrorist activity, the Krasnodar Krai Prosecutor's Office reported today on its Telegram channel.

The name of the accused, the name of the messenger, and the content of the posts in the department's statement were not disclosed, nor was the measure of restraint chosen for the accused. The prosecutor's office did not specify whether the man pleaded guilty.

The case with the approved indictment has been sent to the Southern District Military Court. Caucasian Knot has not yet received any comments from the accused or his lawyer.

"Caucasian Knot" reported that courts in southern Russia regularly sentence local residents to prison terms for social media posts under the statute of justifying terrorism online. It is impossible to determine the actual number of such sentences, as not all cases of justifying terrorism are included in the courts' public records.

In early June, a court sentenced Volgograd Region resident Tigran Armenakyan to five years in prison for publicly justifying terrorism and calling for extremism in a messenger app. In December, a court sentenced Volgograd native Ramil Salmanov to three years in prison on similar charges.