Angelina Mkhitaryan is a political prisoner
7-year prison sentence for a pensioner from Primorye: security officials found calls for both extremism and terrorism in a short sentence
Angelina Mkhitaryan is a mother of five and grandmother of ten from Primorsky Krai. She is a supporter of the Citizens of the USSR movement and a blogger.
Mkhitaryan was first tried in 2023, when she was sentenced to two years suspended for using non-dangerous violence against a bailiff. The bailiff had prevented Mkhitaryan and an associate from entering a magistrate’s court. They had come to explain that such a position did not exist because there was no record of it in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. During the altercation, Mkhitaryan grabbed the bailiff, who had twisted her associate’s arm, by the genitals and threatened to tear them off if he did not release her friend.
On May 22, 2024, Mkhitaryan was charged with publicly calling for terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code) and placed in a pre-trial detention center. On August 2, 2024, her measure of restraint was eased on health grounds — the pensioner had apparently suffered a stroke while in detention. Another charge was soon added: publicly calling for extremist activities (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Russian Criminal Code).
The charges under both articles stemmed from a video Mkhitaryan posted on her YouTube channel in June 2023 criticizing digitalization. The video was titled “Put the Digitalists headed by Maksut Shadaev on a stake.” The prosecution took issue specifically with the title, claiming that it called for an attack on the life of Maksut Shadaev, the head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media — and therefore constituted a call for terrorism — as well as calling for violence against members of the social group “digitalists,” and therefore constituted a call for extremism. Mkhitaryan herself told the court that her account had been hacked and the title of the video changed: she said that it had originally read “Put the Digitalists headed by Maksut Shadaev on a dick.”
On August 8, 2025, a military court sentenced Angelina Mkhitaryan to seven years in prison. The court partially added the sentence from her previous case involving the altercation with the bailiff. The pensioner was taken into custody in the courtroom.
We believe that Mkhitaryan’s statement should be interpreted figuratively, as an expression of her extreme dissatisfaction with the official and his agency. The assumption that a pensioner was seriously calling for medieval execution to be used against government officials is absurd. In our view, such brief emotional statements should not be treated as crimes in the first place: they pose no real threat to society and constitute an exercise of the right to freedom of expression. In any event, seven years in a Russian penal colony is an outrageously disproportionate and cruel punishment for an elderly woman.
A detailed description of Angelina Mkhitaryan’s case and of our position is available on our website.
How can you help?
You can write to Angelina Mkhitaryan at the following address:
Ru:
692669, Приморский край, Михайловский р-н, п. Горное, ул. Ленина, д. 25, ФКУ ИК-10 ГУФСИН России по Приморскому краю, Мхитарян Ангелина Мамиконовна, 1959 г. р.
En:
Mkhitaryan Angelina Mamikonovna (born 1959), Penal Colony No. 10, Federal Penitentiary Service Directorate for Primorsky Krai, 25 Lenina St., Gornoye settlement, Mikhaylovsky District, Primorsky Krai, 692669, Russia,
You can also send emails via Memorial-France (free of charge).
Please note that letters in languages other than Russian are highly unlikely to reach the intended recipient.
You can donate to help all political prisoners in Russia.
