A mechanical engineer from Tver who was sentenced to more than two years in prison for reposting a cartoon about Crimea on social media was released on Wednesday.
Andrei Bubeyev was jailed for two years and three months for sharing a post originally published by Russian journalist Boris Stomakhin with the text “Crimea is Ukraine” on social media website Vkontakte in 2016.
The court described the post as extremist and incitement to separatism. He was released in the early hours of Thursday, his wife told the RBC outlet.
Bubeyev, a mechanical engineer from the Tver region, pleaded innocent to the charges.
“I didn’t even express my own opinion, but just shared someone else’s opinion, for which I was jailed for more than two years,” he was cited as saying by RBC. “In any other country there would have been no question of punishment."
The case was widely seen as a government crackdown on social media users under the guise of extremism.
Bubeyev was previously found guilty of extremism for reposting a video on social media that referred to Russia as a "facist aggressor."
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