The Moscow City Court sentenced former Yandex employee Sergey Irin to 15 years in a penal colony, finding him guilty of treason for transferring $500 to the Ukrainian military aid fund "Come Back Alive"*, reported a "Mediazona"** correspondent from the courtroom.
The first three years of the sentence Irin will spend in prison, the rest in a high-security colony. He was also fined an amount equivalent to two years' salary — 5 million rubles.
The programmer Irin made the donation from his Russian bank card on February 27, 2022, a few days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Soon he left Russia, lived in Turkey and Sri Lanka, and in April 2024 returned to his homeland. He went to Nizhny Novgorod, where he planned to visit his mother and brother, as well as meet old friends and go kayaking with them on the river.
Initially, Irin was sent to 5 days of administrative arrest on charges of petty hooliganism, and upon leaving the detention center on May 1, he was detained again on charges of treason. After his detention, according to his own recollections in letters to a support group, he was "interrogated with a stun gun and flown to Moscow, to [detention center] Lefortovo."
Sergey Irin does not deny that he consciously made the transfer "for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine" because he wanted to help Ukraine.
During the announcement of the sentence, Irin did not stand up, but took out a poster with the words: "Putin is a..." and showed it to the audience.
* Recognized in Russia as an "undesirable" organization.
** Recognized in Russia as a "foreign agent".