Aleksandr Nesterenko

A Moscow court has sentenced university teacher Aleksandr Nesterenko to three years’ imprisonment, for sharing Ukrainian songs on a social media account.

On 19 December, the Liublin district court sentenced Nesterenko, an associate professor in the faculty of philosophy at the Moscow state technical university, to three years. The 62-year-old lecturer has been in custody since September 2024 because he saved on his page on VKontakte [a Russian language site similar to facebook] a clip of the songs 'We are growing' by Voply Vidopliassov [Screams of Vidopliassov, a Ukrainian rock-and-roll band], 'We were born at a great time' [a Ukrainian nationalist anthem] and 'Bandera is our father, Ukraine our mother' [a Ukrainian song that Nesterenko denies having circulated]. Experts saw in these songs 'evidence of incitement to violent actions against Russians, as a group defined by nationality' and 'to the destruction of Russians as military opponents.' To start with, Nesterenko was accused of 'inciting hatred or antipathy' [Article 282:2 of the Russian criminal code] and 'advocating extremism' [Article 280:2]. But in court the prosecutor said that the first charge was 'unnecessary', and asked that Nesterenko be sent to a prison colony for four years on the second charge.

2020s

Activists Cases of incitement of hatred and enmity

Reading time: 3 minutes.

The final statement

‘Your power is based on lies and violence’

I hope that this statement is my last in this auditorium, but not my last all together. To start with, I wish everyone here a happy Christmas, with hopes of miracles and of changes for the better. About this, there’s [Iosif] Brodsky’s poetry: the stronger is Herod, the more certain the inevitable wonder.[1] We’re putting our hopes on that.

In the late 80s and the 90s, if someone had said that there would be political prisoners in Russia again, that the sentences for saying things would be longer than they are for murder, I would have thought that that person was insane.

But here I am, already in my second year in prison, because, among the 400 or so songs in many of the world’s languages on my VKontakte playlist, are a few in Ukrainian. That was the basis for my arrest on charges of “inciting hatred or antipathy”. This “incitement” was against Russians: the charges passed over the Russian Federation’s many other nationalities in silence, as second-class citizens not even worth a mention. It wasn’t specified who I incited to hatred and antipathy against Russians, but it’s not hard to guess that they had in mind people who speak Ukrainian.

At the last minute, without any explanation, the charges on which I have been held behind bars for two years, as a terrorist and extremist, were dropped. It turned out that the impression created, of a whirlwind of activity on my case by dozens of law enforcement officers, was all in vain. They undertook search operations, prepared expertise and made investigations of my case … instead of defending citizens from actual terrorists. And now I am charged only with advocating extremist activity.

Both songs that are mentioned in the charges – the third one [“Bandera is our father, Ukraine our mother”] is not, and never was, in my playlist – have lyrics written a hundred years ago. They have nothing whatever to do with the Russian Federation, nor with Russians, nor with the current world situation. I am not their author and I didn’t perform them. I didn’t put them on line. No-one has designated them extremist or included them in lists of banned items, and none of the social media channels have blocked them. They are right there, being listened to by other VKontakte users, from whom I took them, to add to my playlist for future study, to follow up on my research interests. Which, in case anyone is interested, are: imagined communities, historical memory, group identities, historical narratives and similar subjects.

In other words, the charges under the relevant Article of the criminal code do not fit with the circumstances of the case. They are unlawful.

What has happened to me, and to other prisoners of conscience, demonstrates clearly this government’s real character. It is based on lies and violence. Its aim is to force us to become sheep, marching to the beat of drums made from our own skins. But in spite of the merciless repression, in Russia there were and there are people who have not renounced their ideals, their truths, because only those truths are worthy of devoting their lives to. And for me it’s a great honour that, by the will of fate, I now stand by side with these wonderful people.

19 December 2025

Liublin district court, Moscow, Russia.

Source: People and nature
More information: Memorial PZK
Photo: Sotavision.