Statute · Russia
Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
rehabilitation of Nazism
The Detained has documented 30 cases in Russia in which this article was charged. 17 ended in a prison sentence, with a median of 5 years and the longest at 18 years.
Article 354.1, "rehabilitation of Nazism", was added in 2014 and expanded in 2021. It covers denying facts established by the Nuremberg tribunal, "spreading knowingly false information about the activity of the USSR during the Second World War", public insults to the memory of the war and to veterans, and desecration of symbols of military glory. The 2021 amendments raised the penalties, to five years for the aggravated forms, and added "humiliation of the honour and dignity of a veteran".
Almost none of the documented cases involve Nazism. They involve Victory Day: a post about the Soviet-German pact, a comment comparing the current war to 1941, a photo of a monument, a joke about the St George ribbon. Since 2022 prosecutors have paired the article with 207.3 so that an antiwar statement that mentions the Second World War is charged twice. The offence is, in effect, dissent from the official memory of the war, and the year series below shows when that began to be prosecuted at scale.
Arrests by year
| 2020 | 1 |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2023 | 8 |
| 2024 | 3 |
| 2025 | 5 |
| 2026 | 3 |
| n/a | 8 · arrest date not published |
Charged together with
- Art. 207.3 (14)
- Art. 205.2 (7)
- Art. 282.1 (5)
- Art. 280 (4)
- Art. 282 (3)
- Art. 239 (3)
- Art. 280.4 (3)
- Art. 148 (2)
All documented cases · 30
| Name | Arrested | Sentence | Place of arrest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boliyor Khalikov Uzbek migrant worker | 17 May 2026 | no sentence recorded | Yaroslavl, Russia |
| Alexey Marfin | 26 Jan 2026 | 6 years | Kirov, Russia |
| Iona Sigida Independent Orthodox priest | 16 Jan 2026 | no sentence recorded | Slavyansk-na-Kubani, Krasnodar |
| Marina Zheleznyakova Politician | 12 Nov 2025 | no sentence recorded | Primorsky Krai, Russia |
| Evgeny Pinchuk Hieromonk | 17 Oct 2025 | 5 years 6 months | Sverdlovsk region |
| Khristoliub Bozhii Vegan Blogger | 13 Oct 2025 | 3 years | Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast |
| Arsen Markaryan blogger, life coach | 1 Aug 2025 | 4 years 6 months | |
| Maria Smorzhenskikh-Smirnova Director of Narva Museum | 1 Jan 2025 | 10 years | Narva, Estonia |
| Petr Skripnik | 1 Sept 2024 | 1 year | Crimea, Russia |
| Afanasev Andrei Nikolaevich | 29 Aug 2024 | 1 year | Kaly, Republic of Khakassia |
| Dmitry Olegovich Denisov Electrician, communist | 10 Apr 2024 | 1 year | Pushkin, Saint Petersburg |
| Polina Sergeyevna Evtushenko Translator | 13 Jul 2023 | no sentence recorded | Tolyatti, Samara region |
| Mikhail Aleksandrovich Zharikov Former employee of the press service of the Torpedo hockey club | 1 Jul 2023 | 5 years | Nizhny Novgorod |
| Polina Evtushenko | 1 Jul 2023 | no sentence recorded | Tolyatti |
| Vasily Petrovich Neustroev Student, Latin teacher, member of the Yabloko party | 6 Jun 2023 | no sentence recorded | Saint Petersburg |
| Arkhipova Anna Nikolaevna Student | 6 Jun 2023 | no sentence recorded | Novosibirsk |
| Valentin Khoroshenin activist | 1 Jun 2023 | 6 years 2 months | |
| Anna Arkhipova activist | 1 Jun 2023 | 13 years | Novosibirsk, Russia |
| Vegan Hristolyub Bozhiy videoblogger | 26 Jan 2023 | 3 years | Korshevo, Voronezh region |
| Sergei Eduardovich Komandirov civil and political activist | 5 Oct 2021 | 6 years | Smolensk |
| Sergey Reznik Journalist | 1 Oct 2021 | no sentence recorded | Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Oblast |
| Leonid Volkov Politician | 1 Jan 2020 | 18 years | Moscow, Moscow |
| Aleksei Marfin | date unknown | 5 years | Yuryansk district, Kirov Oblast |
| Andrei Tishchenko | date unknown | no sentence recorded | Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg |
| Igor Orzhevsky Blogger | date unknown | no sentence recorded | Moscow, Moscow |
| Igor Orlovskii Worker, Artist | date unknown | 7 years | Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai |
| Igor Orzhevsky Blogger | date unknown | no sentence recorded | Moscow, Moscow |
| Raisa Novoselova Other | date unknown | no sentence recorded | Kirov Oblast |
| Dmitry Kalashnikov | date unknown | no sentence recorded | Bryansk, Bryansk Oblast |
| Nordin Sven Karlovich civil activist | date unknown | 2 years | Mamonovo, Kaliningrad Oblast |
Questions
- Does the article require praising Nazism?
- No. Most documented cases concern statements about Soviet history, the current war, or war memorials. "Rehabilitation" is the name of the article, not a description of the conduct.
- Why is it charged alongside Article 207.3?
- When an antiwar statement refers to the Second World War, prosecutors charge both the "false information about the army" and the "false information about the USSR" provisions, which raises the sentence.
How to write to a political prisoner in Russia
How we define a political prisoner
Other statutes in Russia
- Article 207.3 · military "fakes"
- Article 280.3 · "discrediting" the army
- Article 205.2 · justification of terrorism
- Article 275 · high treason
- Article 275.1 · confidential cooperation with a foreign state
- Article 205.5 · participation in a terrorist organization
- Article 282.2 · participation in an extremist organization
- Article 280 · calls to extremism
- Article 205 · terrorist act
- Article 212 · mass riots
- Article 318 · violence against a representative of authority
- Article 214 · vandalism
Counts are of published records in The Detained’s database for Russia that carry this article, matched after normalizing how sources write it, as of 11 Nov 2026. They are a documented minimum: cases not yet published or not yet linked to the article are not counted. Each row links to the case record and its sources.