Semyon Krasotkin, a 27-year-old mathematician and journalist from Moscow, has been jailed on treason charges, the news outlet Vot Tak reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Krasotkin was detained at Domodedovo Airport in mid-August 2026 after a trip to Kyrgyzstan, a source told Vot Tak. Border guards searched his phone and found \u201cstars\u201d \u2014 paid reactions that serve as Telegram\u2019s virtual currency \u2014 that he had left on posts in opposition and Ukrainian Telegram channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Krasotkin was then kept in custody through a series of back-to-back jail terms for the administrative offense of \u201cpetty hooliganism.\u201d Before that, Vot Tak\u2019s sources said, he had been threatened with treason charges, torture, and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Krasotkin was due to be released on September 17 but was again kept in custody. He was taken to the Moscow office of the Federal Security Service, Russia\u2019s domestic security agency, where authorities opened a treason investigation into him, sources told Vot Tak. On September 19, a court ordered him held in pretrial detention for two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One source told Vot Tak that investigators listed \u201cstar\u201d reactions worth a total of 2,200 rubles in Krasotkin\u2019s case. Another said Krasotkin had sent \u201cstars\u201d to a Ukrainian Telegram meme channel that was probably raising money for Ukraine\u2019s armed forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Krasotkin earned a master\u2019s degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and worked as a mathematician at the Russian Academy of Sciences\u2019 Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences. He also joined Russian Wikinews at 16. The project\u2019s website lists him as one of its nine administrators; he has published more than a million news items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Criminal investigations over Telegram \u201cstars\u201d have been reported<\/a> since early 2026, though the initial investigations involved allegations of financing terrorism. In the summer, the Telegram channel Tyuremny Advokat reported<\/a> the first treason investigations over Telegram \u201cstars.\u201d In September 2026, human rights advocates asked<\/a> Telegram founder Pavel Durov to make paid reactions to posts anonymous because Russians were facing criminal prosecution over them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-67188","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","regions-moscow","news-type-novosti-smi-en-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n