A court in Siberia on July 30 extended by one year the 19-year prison term of Ruslan Zinin, who shot a military commissioner at an enlistment center in the city of Ust-Ilimsk in 2022 amid protests against a military mobilization for the war in Ukraine.
Zinin's lawyer, Olga Chernova, said the court also ruled that her client must stay in a cell-like prison for the first eight years of the sentence before being transferred to a maximum-security correctional colony.
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A military court in the Siberian city of Irkutsk sentenced Zinin to 19 years in prison in January after finding him guilty of conducting a "terrorist act" and illegal firearm possession. He has already spent a year in prison, meaning he has another 19 years left to serve after the extension.
Zinin shot military commissioner Aleksandr Yeliseyev at a recruitment center on September 26, 2022, while he was recruiting soldiers amid rising tensions over the Kremlin's unpopular mobilization to support Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Yeliseyev was rushed to a hospital in serious condition but survived.
Zinin was initially charged with attempted murder, but in March last year the charge was changed to a "terrorist act."
Zinin's trial was held behind closed doors. Media reports said Zinin explained his action as an attempt to prevent the recruitment of a friend to fight in the war in Ukraine.
Later reports said Zinin told the judge that he wanted to prevent one of his three brothers who had been summoned to the recruitment center from being mobilized to the war after his best friend, who had never served in the army, was sent to Ukraine and died there.
Zinin's brother, who was 18 at the time, was not mobilized after the incident.
The mobilization for the war in Ukraine, announced by President Vladimir Putin in September 2022, was met with countrywide protests and the mass flight from Russia of men potentially eligible for military duty.
Thousands of people were detained in Russian towns and cities for protesting against mobilization, while several military enlistment centers and other administrative buildings in the country have been targeted in arson attacks.