A Russian court has ordered the release of an activist who was forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2015 after making online calls for the establishment of a "Urals people's republic."
A district court in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk ruled on June 1 that Aleksei Moroshkin poses no threat to society and must be released, his lawyer Andrei Lepyokhin said.
Lepyokhin said that Moroshkin was to be released 10 days after the ruling was pronounced.
Moroshkin was tried after he posted calls for the creation of a Urals people's republic, echoing Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine who call the areas they control "people's republics."
While Moscow backs the separatists in Ukraine, calls for the separation of any part of Russia from the country are illegal and draw the ire of officials.
Also in 2015, Moroshkin was charged with vandalism for painting the blue-and-yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag on a bust of the Soviet Union's founder, Vladimir Lenin. He could still face prosecution on that charge.
