Military court sentences IT specialist to nine years in penal colony for transferring 700 rubles to an acquaintance with a mental disorder

The 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow has sentenced 38-year-old IT specialist and CPRF member Denis Vashchuk from Blagoveshchensk to nine years in a penal colony, the first three years of which he must serve in prison, along with a fine of 400,000 rubles. Human Rights Council member Eva Merkacheva reported this on November 13, 2026. Vashchuk did not plead guilty. The case was heard in just two sessions. According to the investigation, the basis for such a severe punishment was a single transfer of 700 rubles to an acquaintance, which the prosecution deemed «financing terrorist activities».

How the connection arose and where the 700 rubles came from

According to the programmer's father, Sergey Vashchuk, Denis moved from Blagoveshchensk to Moscow in 2022 to look for work. At a roundtable in the State Duma organized by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he met Moscow resident Denis Zhuravlev. Learning that Vashchuk had no housing, Zhuravlev offered to let him stay temporarily; in return, the programmer bought groceries and household necessities. The men were not close friends: Vashchuk lived with his acquaintance for no more than two weeks before moving in with his father in Samara. Sergey Vashchuk also reported that Zhuravlev later began showing signs of a mental disorder.

Following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zhuravlev, according to Vashchuk's lawyer Evgeny Bliznyuk, expressed a desire to go to Ukraine. He left Moscow and ended up in the Bryansk region, where he contacted the programmer and asked for travel money. Vashchuk refused to help, which the defense claims is confirmed by preserved correspondence, screenshots of which were attached to the case file. Later, Zhuravlev asked again for three thousand rubles for a ticket, but was refused once more. Eventually, Zhuravlev's mother contacted Vashchuk, asking him to help her son return to Moscow. On March 3, 2022, the programmer transferred 700 rubles to Zhuravlev. Zhuravlev's mother confirmed that the money received was spent on a ticket to Moscow.

The investigation's version and the defense's position

The investigation, however, claimed that Vashchuk knew the funds were intended to buy a train ticket to Minsk, from where Zhuravlev allegedly planned to travel to Ukraine and join organizations recognized in Russia as terrorist and extremist. The defense insisted otherwise: the transfer was made at the request of Zhuravlev's mother for his return to Moscow, and Zhuravlev himself was not prosecuted due to his mental state and was sent for compulsory treatment. Eva Merkacheva additionally pointed out that Zhuravlev is not listed on Rosfinmonitoring's roster of terrorists and extremists.

Detention, recharacterization, and case progress

After Zhuravlev returned to Moscow, he was detained. In March 2023, Vashchuk was interrogated as a witness; according to the defense, law enforcement officers threatened him with detention and forced him to sign a protocol with a distorted version of his words. After the interrogation, the programmer was released. Vashchuk continued working in IT, lived in Samara, Moscow, Yakutia, and Novy Urengoy, participated in public and youth events, supported the CPRF, and ran a YouTube channel with 3.6 thousand subscribers.

In late December 2025, Vashchuk took a vacation and traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met a girlfriend. On December 30, while traveling from St. Petersburg to Moscow, he was detained at the Kursky railway station allegedly for public disorder and arrested for two weeks. On January 12, 2026, a criminal case was opened against him under Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (assisting terrorist activities, including financing terrorism), which carries a penalty of eight to 15 years in prison. Since January, the programmer had been held in Moscow pre-trial detention center No. 4 «Medved». During the investigation, the charges were modified several times: initially charged with «assisting terrorist activity», the case was later reclassified to the less severe «financing extremist activity», and in late July 2026, the investigation tightened the charges again to «assisting extremist activity».

Sentence and legal issues

The final sentence—nine years in prison and a 400,000 ruble fine—was handed down by the 2nd Western District Military Court. According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, in September 2026 Vashchuk's father, a former senior executive at a USSR Academy of Sciences department, reported that a linguistic analysis of the correspondence between Zhuravlev and Vashchuk would be conducted. HRC member Eva Merkacheva drew attention to the fact that Zhuravlev, to whom the money was transferred, was not prosecuted due to his mental condition and was undergoing treatment in a hospital, and that he was not included in Rosfinmonitoring lists. According to human rights defenders, these circumstances call into question the very logic of the «terrorism financing» charge.