Vitalii Tymkiv

A resident of Novokuznetsk. Criminal proceedings were initiated against him on charges of disseminating “false information” about the military and of calling for extremism and terrorism, in connection with comments criticising the authorities and suggesting that officials be hanged from lampposts. In March 2024, the young man was added to Rosfinmonitoring’s list of “terrorists and extremists”.

The law-enforcement-affiliated Telegram channel “Kuzbass Without Extremism” published Tymkiv’s comments that likely became the basis for the case, including: “As long as Putin destroys the people, the people will not stop poisoning themselves out of hopelessness. That is where all the evil lies”; “The authorities imprisoned him, fearing for their reputation, they imprisoned him and now the authorities are faggots, fucking cocksuckers, outright Nazis, inhuman, Satanists, bastards” (about the Furgal case); “Only Russians are stupid, I hate Russians”; “I propose hanging officials from lampposts for the fact that they went to study in Europe and the US using Russian money, let them study in Africa”. In one instance, in a discussion under a post, responding to another user’s question, “Who is to blame that you didn’t find a job? <…>”, he replied: “Our Nazi, thieving, terrorist authorities are to blame. To leave, you need to earn money; to earn money, you need to leave — give me money, our funds have gone anyway to such pedo people in Moscow and St Petersburg”. In another comment, he wrote to a female user: “Alright, I’m going to go solve the problems now, I’ll hack all the officials to death with a machete”. Among the published comments, there were no statements about the war in Ukraine or about the Russian army, which are usually the grounds for cases on military “fakes”.

In July 2025, the case was referred to court. On 22 September 2025, Tymkiv was convicted; the details of the sentence are unknown.

In 2023, the Zavodskoy District Court of Novokuznetsk three times held Tymkiv administratively liable: in two cases under the article on incitement to hatred, and in one case under the article on the display of prohibited symbols. On 28 March, he was fined 5,000 roubles under a protocol on incitement to hatred over negative comments about Russians. The outcome of the second case on incitement to hatred is unknown. In December, Tymkiv was fined 2,000 roubles over an image of Nazi symbols; he himself stated in court that not all of the correspondence had been presented in the case materials and that he despises Nazism.