Garri Azarian

Student at St Petersburg State University. On 15 May 2025, he was detained on charges of calls for terrorism. The next day he was taken into custody. According to the investigators' version, he is a member of the radical movement "Workers' Power" and called for terrorist activities and mass murder.

In mid-April 2025, the police detained Artem Pronko, a second-year student of the political science faculty of St. Petersburg State University, during classes. According to their version, he suspended a mannequin of the goddess of wisdom Minerva from the monument to Count Uvarov near the Twelve Colleges building. The mannequin was suspended by the neck from the leg of the monument. Nearby was a note: "Science is dead." Pronko claimed he had nothing to do with the action. He was fined 20 thousand rubles under the administrative article on organising an unauthorised event (Part 2, Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences).

After this action, the RIA Novosti news agency reported that law enforcement agencies had identified a group of students with left-wing radical views involved in the action. It was alleged that it was a cell of the UK-based left-radical Organisation of Communists-Internationalists called Workers' Power.

Friends of Garri Azaryan deny information about his radical statements.

You can read more about politically persecuted people in the Telegram channel OVD-Info LIVE and our database of politically motivated criminal prosecutions.