<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo courtesy of Irina Turbina<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last Friday, the 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow sentenced 15-year-old Arseny Turbin to five years in prison. The ninth-grader from the Oryol region was convicted of participating in a terrorist organisation\u2014the charge stemming from his correspondence with a recruiter from the \u201cFreedom of Russia\u201d Legion composed of Russians fighting for Ukraine. Mediazona<\/em> examines how the investigation built its case against Arseny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u0427\u0438\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c \u043d\u0430 \u0440\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u043e\u043c<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s a smart boy. He took part in academic Olympiads and intellectual marathons. He dreamed of studying political science at MGIMO,\u201d says Arseny\u2019s mother, Irina Turbina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina, 41, works as a senior contract manager at the Livny Construction College. Arseny was born in Dubai to a UAE citizen father. Irina soon separated, returned to Russia, and raised her son alone. The boy attended the Livny Lyceum\u2014one of the top schools in the Oryol region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In year six, Arseny began to face bullying due to his skin colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis father cut off contact with us in 2013; he\u2019s starting a family there, following his traditions. We were simply cut off, as if we never existed. The kids at school found out about this. The bullying began: \u2018Your father doesn\u2019t want you, you negro, African American, go back to where you came from.\u2019 Arseny would say: \u2018I\u2019m a Russian citizen, why are you treating me like this?\u2019 \u201d Turbina recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to her, the lyceum \u201cnever wanted to address the situation honestly,\u201d and after another incident, the headteacher \u201caccused Arseny of lying\u201d and said that \u201che was mad and it was all in his head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither the lyceum director nor the form tutor responded to Mediazona\u2019s<\/em> calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February 2021, Irina Turbina continues, classmates beat her son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey dragged him into the shop class in the basement and started kicking him. It was \u201319\u00b0C. They threw him outside through the emergency door and bolted it. He fell ill and was sick for a month with ear inflammation and everything,\u201d says Irina. She managed to transfer him to another class, but the bullying continued. Eventually, he changed classes again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite this, Irina says some teachers continued to \u201cunfairly evaluate\u201d her son and nitpick him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe won the city geography Olympiad that year, took prizes in the intellectual marathon in Russian and English, but was ultimately not put on the honour roll. Even some classmates started to ask, \u2018Why not?\u2019 \u201d says Irina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arseny began to think about social injustice and \u201cgot deeply into Navalny and other movements,\u201d his mother says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On April 25, 2023, he called<\/a> the TV Rain<\/em> channel and said that while he had previously believed propaganda, he was now disappointed in Putin, and the anti-American video that was shown in his class during the \u201cImportant Conversations\u201d<\/a> lesson was \u201cutter nonsense.\u201d The son posted the recording of the broadcast on his YouTube<\/em> channel, says Irina, and she was called to the lyceum because of it. The video had to be deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe finished the school year in May. He was emotional about the injustice and disagreed with some of his grades. I explained to him: \u2018Don\u2019t worry about it, you\u2019ll pass the Unified State Exam and get into university. Your skills will shine through.\u2019 But he told me: \u2018No, this shouldn\u2019t happen. This is all wrong.\u2019 Well, he was only 14,\u201d says Irina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On June 1, 2023, Arseny emailed the \u201cFreedom of Russia\u201d Legion in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the emails, Arseny stated he was \u201cready to post leaflets and fight Putin\u2019s propaganda\u201d and \u201chad an idea how to liberate Russia from Putin.\u201d The recruiter asked him to fill out a questionnaire and send his messaging app contacts. Arseny sent his WhatsApp<\/em> and Telegram<\/em> details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe just saved the form to his laptop desktop and filled in a few fields. There was a requirement that all fields had to be completed, and it had to be sent with photos of documents. And he says: \u2018Mum, I got scared, there\u2019s so much personal information\u2014and I\u2019d be sending it to who knows where, and who knows where it might end up.\u2019 And he says he just left it and abandoned it. He didn\u2019t send anything anywhere,\u201d Irina Turbina insists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, from early June, Arseny was actively managing his VK<\/em> page<\/a>\u2014commenting on all major events, including the marathon in support of political prisoners, Prigozhin\u2019s mutiny, and the drone attack on Moscow. In late July, he changed his profile picture to a crossed-out face of Vladimir Putin, and during the holidays, he distributed anti-Putin leaflets he\u2019d found online and printed in May to neighbours\u2019 letterboxes\u2014he wanted to \u201cinform people as elections were approaching,\u201d Irina recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One Strange Acquaintance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During his interrogation, Arseny Turbin recounted that in June 2023, a new acquaintance named Maxim gave him administrator rights to the Telegram channel Occupy Shlukhofilyay 14, and he published several anti-war posts there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The name and content of this channel are typical for the fans of the Russian neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich (Tesak). In the summer of 2023, the channel wrote extensively about the Russian-Ukrainian war. Its creator used to call himself \u201cPrigozhin Maxim Tesakovich,\u201d but it was difficult to understand which side of the conflict he sympathized with: enthusiastic posts about the Wagner PMC mercenaries alternated with advocacy for the Russian Volunteer Corps fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As of the publication of this article, the channel had only 23 subscribers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina Turbina does not rule out the possibility that \u201cMaxim\u201d was sent to her son by security forces to \u201ccreate the image that he is such a beast, a Nazi, and everything else.\u201d According to her, in May, \u201cMaxim\u201d was the first to approach Arseny at the sports ground, and later wrote to him, offering to publish short videos about the war on his channel, while himself \u201cthrowing in all the Nazism, Nazi symbols, how Tesak was beating people of other nationalities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina describes \u201cMaxim\u201d as a teenager older than her son. She told Mediazona how she contacted him on Telegram in the spring of 2024. In the messages, he confirmed that Arseny\u2019s \u201cgoal\u201d as an admin was limited to publishing \u201cedits\u201d, or short template videos, about the war\u2014the schoolboy had nothing to do with the other content. \u201cMaxim\u201d suggested presenting this to the \u201cinvestigator-fool.\u201d \u201cShow her my messages, and let her look for me. She won\u2019t find me,\u201d recounts Turbina his words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaxim\u2019s\u201d Telegram account was created in April 2023\u2014a month before meeting Turbin. \u201cMaxim\u201d did not respond to Mediazona\u2019s messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July 2023, Turbin started his own Free Russia Telegram channel, where he posted opposition videos. Only five people subscribed to it, and the channel has now been deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several times, Arseny posted his own photos and videos there: he asked a friend to film him distributing leaflets in staircases and posing with a white-blue-white poster. Later, during questioning, he emphasized it was not only the symbol of the \u201cFreedom of Russia\u201d Legion but also \u201cin general, an anti-war flag,\u201d as well as \u201cthe flag of the rural settlement of Sosnovo-Ozerskoye in Buryatia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of July, Irina recounts, she and her son went on vacation to Anapa on the Black Sea coast. In the Rostov region, their train passed by a military convoy, and Arseny, like other passengers, took a photo of the convoy with armored vehicles as a keepsake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On August 29, 2023, at six in the morning, FSB agents came to the Turbins\u2019 residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Investigators said they would search the premises and took all the equipment. Irina Turbina recounts they were forced to unlock their phones, and the only laptop she and her son shared was not password-protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They found nothing in the apartment, only a keyring with the inscription \u201cI love Alexei,\u201d she adds. The security officers asked if it referred to Alexei Navalny, and Arseny confirmed it did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, the Turbins were summoned to the Livny FSB office. Captain Droganov questioned the schoolboy in his mother\u2019s presence. Arseny explained that since 2023, he had \u201cbegun to take an interest in liberalism\u201d and realised that there was \u201cno freedom of speech or independent media\u201d in the country, so he didn\u2019t approve of \u201cthe governing policy of our President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.\u201d According to the protocol, Droganov asked whom the teenager watched on YouTube<\/em> (he listed Alexei Navalny, as well as political bloggers Maxim Katz and Mikhail Khodorkovsky) and what he knew about Navalny\u2019s Anti-Corruption Foundation, the \u201cFreedom of Russia\u201d Legion, and the \u201cRussian Volunteer Corps,\u201d another paramilitary unit of Russian citizens fighting on the Ukrainian side, composed of \u00e9migr\u00e9 far-right activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the questioning, Irina and her son were released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn September 5, he goes to school\u2014I always see him off from the balcony, he waves to me\u2014I look, a car stops, people get out and approach him. I immediately understood: one, I see, is an FSB officer, the other person has a folder. They bring him back home. They immediately enter with these credentials: \u2018A criminal case has been opened against your son under such-and-such article.\u2019 I was stressed, hysterical,\u201d Irina recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were taken to the Investigative Committee in Oryol for questioning, and later that day Arseny was placed in a temporary detention facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senior investigator of the first department for especially important cases, Major of Justice Trunov, opened a case on participation in a terrorist organisation on September 5 at six in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The investigator wrote that Arseny Turbin had \u201ccorresponded\u201d with representatives of the Freedom of Russia Legion, \u201cexpressed and confirmed intentions to participate\u201d in its activities, \u201cjoined the said military association,\u201d and \u201cfulfilled their assignment to produce and distribute documentary materials aimed at illegally changing the established public order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, September 6, Trunov demanded Arseny be sent to a remand centre, but the Zavodskoy District Court of Oryol placed him under house arrest with permission to attend the lyceum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina Turbina notes that due to house arrest, her son couldn\u2019t study with tutors or prepare for the Unified State Exam. Later, he was given two hours for walks, and shortly before the trial, he was released with restrictions on certain activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How the investigation proved the involvement with the Legion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The indictment states that on June 6\u20138, 2023, Arseny Turbin sent a completed questionnaire to the Freedom of Russia Legion\u2019s email, thereby joining a terrorist organization and subsequently acting in its interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything the teenager did during the summer holidays of 2023 was interpreted by the investigation as cooperation with the legion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cImplementing the commitments of a member of the \u2018Freedom of Russia\u2019 Legion\u201d and \u201cacting in the interests of the terrorist organization \u2018Freedom of Russia\u2019 Legion,\u201d Turbin found an anti-Putin leaflet template on the internet, printed about a hundred copies, and \u201ccommitted a terrorist act\u201d by distributing them in mailboxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, he \u201ctook a picture of himself with a poster of a white-blue-white flag, which is the official symbol of the \u2018Freedom of Russia\u2019 Legion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turbin also started a Free Russia Telegram channel, where he posted about his activism and reposted other opposition figures, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky. According to the investigation, he did this \u201cto promote the ideas of the \u2018Freedom of Russia\u2019 Legion [not associated with Khodorkovsky]\u201d and \u201cto publicize his activities as a member\u201d of this organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina Turbina believes the FSB fabricated her son\u2019s interrogation protocol from August 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the document compiled by Captain Droganov at that time, Arseny is quoted as saying: \u201cI planned to join the mentioned Legion and sent them a completed questionnaire.\u201d These statements were signed by both him and his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She insists that during the interrogation she sat next to her son, and Arseny didn\u2019t say this. Turbina recalls how FSB officers retyped the protocol three times due to inaccuracies, such as errors in the surname, and admits they could have subtly altered the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf I\u2019d known earlier what these people were like, we\u2019d never encountered this before, I would have reread it,\u201d she says, shrugging her shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, at his first interrogation as a suspect, Arseny said that he filled out the questionnaire but then \u201cgot scared\u201d (\u201ctoo much of my personal data\u201d) and only sent his messaging apps contacts to the recruiters. No one replied to him, and the correspondence with the legion ended there. Turbin maintained this version in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the case files mention an audio recording of the questioning, according to which on August 30, the teenager \u201cconfirmed the fact of applying to join the banned \u2018Freedom of Russia\u2019 Legion association\u201d and carrying out assignments for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The exact same wording is repeated in the interrogation protocol of FSB officer Vladislav Afanasyev from the Oryol region. He gave testimony to investigator Trunov immediately after the criminal case was initiated and said that he was present at Arseny’s questioning in August and heard him \u201cconfirm the fact of applying,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The legion\u2019s \u201cassignments\u201d that Turbin allegedly carried out, according to the investigation, concerned \u201cthe production and distribution of documentary materials\u201d\u2014another phrase that frequently appears in the case files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The security forces first used it on August 31, when the acting head of the regional FSB, Anatoly Chernykhovsky, sent the results of operational activities regarding Turbin to the Investigative Committee. Chernykhovsky wrote that the schoolboy had joined the Legion and \u201cfulfilled their assignment to produce and distribute documentary materials,\u201d which could be qualified as participation in a terrorist organisation\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cmaterials\u201d in question were leaflets showing Vladimir Putin behind bars, which Arseny had put in letterboxes. \u201cThe FSB also tried to convince me that this leaflet with Putin was given to him by the Legion. Arseny says it\u2019s a leaflet from Google.<\/em> They tell me, no, it\u2019s not on Google. <\/em>But then I found it, it was the first thing that came up on Google,\u201d<\/em> Irina remembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A template for such a leaflet has been circulating on Russian opposition pages since at least 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, the security forces were interested in \u201cphotographic materials of military train movements\u201d; as Irina says, her son took these shots from the train window when they were travelling together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe gave explanations, and I attached the tickets I\u2019d bought on the Russian Railways website, showing that we were travelling. I said: \u2018What are you on about? I don\u2019t see a whole carriage of people on trial here.\u2019 Half the carriage was taking pictures, I said,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In early October 2023, the investigator sent Arseny to an outpatient psychiatric examination at a clinic in Oryol. \u201cThey kept him there for about four hours. He came out in shock, sat there, didn\u2019t say anything. The next day he says: \u2018You know what this psychologist told me?\u2019\u2014\u2018People like you need to be shot if martial law is introduced. You\u2019re an outcast, you have no right to study at school, let alone university,\u2019 \u201d recounts Irina Turbina her son\u2019s words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She adds that her son had been deeply affected by the criminal case from the very beginning: \u201cThe kid was in shock. The Constitution of the Russian Federation always lays on his table. He says: \u2018Mom, what about Article 29 [protecting the freedom of speech]?\u2019 Because I haven\u2019t done anything wrong, there\u2019s only my opinion and my position. I haven\u2019t sent any questionnaire anywhere, no one has given me any instructions. He says: \u2018Why are they treating me like this?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turbina believes, that in February, Investigator Trunov leaned towards closing the case. However, according to her information, the head of the investigative department of the regional Investigative Committee, Petr Yudin, was against it\u2014he transferred the case and tasked another investigator with proceeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Irina Turbina, new investigator, Simonova, tried to prove that Arseny adhered to neo-Nazi views\u2014she was immediately interested in the \u201cOccupy Shlukhofilyay\u201d Telegram channel. However, the investigator did not start looking for a \u201cMaxim,\u201d and instead, in April 2024, questioned four of Arseny\u2019s classmates. Turbina says her son played football with these boys. All four of them testified against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All four mentioned that Turbin often initiated political conversations at the lyceum, during social studies classes \u201cactively expressed his opinion,\u201d \u201csaid Putin is a thief,\u201d and didn\u2019t support the invasion of Ukraine. All four mentioned an incident that allegedly occurred in year eight during a music lesson: when the teacher left the class, Arseny played a song that \u201ccriticised the President and the country\u2019s policies,\u201d and started dancing, but \u201cno one in the class supported Turbin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also, according to the classmates\u2019 testimony, called them rusnya<\/em> and suggested shooting them or sending them to Siberia; one of the witnesses didn\u2019t know what rusnya<\/em> meant but guessed it was related to \u201cbeing Russian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two classmates in their testimony claimed that Arseny \u201cadhered to neo-Nazi ideology,\u201d and his \u201cidol was the so-called Tesak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina Turbina believes the testimonies were fabricated. She showed Mediazona<\/em> screenshots of her son\u2019s chat where Arseny called Tesak a \u201cmoron\u201d and emphasised he was a \u201cliberal, not a neo-Nazi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the witness classmates, in discussing Turbin\u2019s \u201cneo-Nazism,\u201d for some reason said that he advocated for the \u201cextermination of Ukrainians\u201d; others, without seeing any contradiction, added that Arseny called himself a supporter of Navalny. Two teenagers also claimed Turbin had joked about making a bomb, but this wasn\u2019t included in the indictment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irina believes the testimonies were given in exchange for good grades. After the case began, bullying at school intensified, with peers calling Arseny a \u201ccriminal\u201d and telling him to \u201cchoose a cell.\u201d In December 2023, Irina moved him to homeschooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In late May, state exams began. On the first day, Arseny was thoroughly searched, and on the second, a police officer explained the \u201crules of behavior during summer vacation,\u201d recounts Turbina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trial by the Second Western District Military Court took four sessions. During the hearings, on his lawyer\u2019s advice, he emphasized that he had \u201cvoluntarily ceased\u201d opposition activities long before the security forces\u2019 visit: he last distributed leaflets in July, and hadn\u2019t posted on the Free Russia channel since mid-August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On May 31, he was released from house arrest with restrictions and allowed to use the phone. After this, posts about Russia\u2019s military successes appeared on his VK<\/em> page, and his status reads \u201cnationalist, conservative, and patriot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe intentionally changed all these pictures on VK to prove… Maybe someone will check there, he thought,\u201d says Irina Turbina. \u201cWe thought it would have some positive impact, but it didn\u2019t. I visited Arseny in pre-trial detention on Friday. I say, \u2018Arseny, changing all this was pointless, but let it be, there\u2019s no use in changing it back.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On June 18, he visited Alexei Navalny\u2019s grave with his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turbin did not admit guilt in court. The prosecutor requested eight years in prison. On June 20, Judge Oleg Shishov sentenced him to five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Irina Turbina, the verdict shocked her son. \u201cHe cried a lot. Did not expect it. He used to hold on and did not get upset. And then, he really cried, hugged me, and said: \u2018Mom, forgive me. Forgive me for letting you down. But I really didn\u2019t know I was violating anything,\u2019 \u201d says Turbina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She recalls how even before the arrest, she warned her son that public political statements in Russia could lead to trouble, but he didn\u2019t believe it. \u201cHe said: \u2018Mom, they won\u2019t come.\u2019 I say: \u2018They\u2019re going to come, Arseny, they come to everyone. And we won’t be an exception,\u2019 \u201d she recounts their conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Memorial human rights group declared Arseny Turbin a political prisoner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Olga\u00a0Romashova<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-32948","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","regions-orel-oblast"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Bullying<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Summer Break<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Case<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Questionnaire<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Trial<\/h2>\n\n\n\n