Kulikov Yan Yurevich

In the city of Soligalich in the Kostroma region in October 2022, a criminal case was opened for "fakes" about the Russian army against entrepreneur and bookseller Yan Kulikov. As a preventive measure, he was placed under a written undertaking not to leave." The reason for the criminal prosecution was posts on VKontakte on July 16 and 17, 2022. One of them was about the shelling of residential areas of the city of Nikopol in the Dnepropetrovsk region by the Russian army from the Grad multiple rocket launcher system. In another - about the constant shelling by the armed forces of the Russian Federation of civilian infrastructure and civilians in Vinnytsia, Kremenchuk, Chasov Yar, Mariupol, Odessa, Kramatorsk, Kharkiv and other cities. In December 2023, Kulikov was sentenced to 6 months of corrective labor, but a year later, in December 2024, the court in cassation, following the prosecutor's submission, overturned the verdict and returned the case to the prosecutor's office. The prosecutor believed that the bookseller's actions should be qualified under the article on "fakes" about the Russian army motivated by political, ideological, and national hatred. On September 11, 2025, the Chukhlomsky District Court of the Kostroma Region found Yan Kulikov guilty and sentenced him to 5 years of imprisonment with a probationary period and a 4-year ban on administering Internet resources. November 11, 2025, Judge Elena Veretennikova of the Kostroma Regional Court toughened the sentence and instead of a suspended sentence, he was sentenced to 5 years in a general regime colony. The man himself was not present at the announcement of the verdict - he could not come to court because he was caring for his sick mother. The judge ordered to detain Kulikov and send him into custody. The court also ruled that when calculating the final term of imprisonment, the five months of correctional labor served by Kulikov should be credited at a rate of three days for one.