MOSCOW -- A court in Moscow has handed popular blogger Yegor Zhukov a three-year suspended sentence after finding him guilty of inciting extremism online in a case condemned as politically motivated.
The Kuntsevo district court announced the verdict on December 6 as hundreds of supporters of Zhukov, a student at Moscow's prestigious Higher School of Economics, gathered outside the court building in western Moscow.
"The court has established that Zhukov made public calls for extremist activity using the Internet," Judge Svetlana Ukhnaleva said.
Zhukov was arrested in August amid the protests that gripped Moscow for weeks this past summer as Russians vented against the country's repressive political system.
"Of course, this is not an ultimate victory. A big thank you to everyone," Zhukov said after the verdict was announced.
In his final court appearance, on December 4, Zhukov made an impassioned appeal to his supporters -- and offered an indictment of Russia's political system.
SEE ALSO: A Russian Blogger’s Final Words At Trial Resonate Beyond A Moscow CourtroomRussia's current political system has fostered economic inequality that, Zhukov said, destroys any opportunity for human prosperity, with the top 10 percent holding 90 percent of the country's wealth.
"Among them, of course, there are very honorable citizens. But the bulk of this wealth was obtained not by honest labor, for the benefit of people, but by banal corruption," he said.
Prior to his predawn arrest on August 2, Zhukov had already drawn a sizable audience on YouTube, where he had posted a series of video blogs in which he vented against President Vladimir Putin and promoted opposition protests across the country.
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Russian Activist Blogger Gets Suspended Sentence After Anti-Putin Videos
In the series of protests that hit Moscow on consecutive weekends during the summer, police detained hundreds of people on various charges; most were released for misdemeanor violations.
At a different location in the capital on December 6, the Tver district court sentenced Nikita Chirtsov, a 22-year-old programmer who took part in an unsanctioned rally on July 27, to a one-year sentence "in a general penal colony."
Chirtsov was initially fined 12,000 rubles ($185) for violating regulations for holding public events, after which he left Moscow for the Belarusian capital, Minsk. However, Belarusian officials detained him days later on a Russian request and ordered him sent back to Moscow.
Upon his return, Chirtsov was rearrested and charged with assaulting a police officer during the rally and placed in pretrial detention. Chirtsov maintained his innocence throughout the trial, and the police officer involved told the count in November that the suspect "does not deserve imprisonment."
The Tver district court also fined 32-year-old Pavel Novikov 120,000 rubles ($1,850) after finding him guilty of assaulting a police officer during the same July 27 rally.
Meanwhile, the Meshchansky district court on December 6 handed Vladimir Yemelyanov a two-year suspended sentence after also finding him guilty of assaulting a law officer during the July 27 rally.
The Meshchansky district court later handed Yegor Lesnykh and Maksim Martintsov three and two-and-a-half year prison terms, respectively. Aleksandr Mylnikov was given a two-year suspended sentence. All three had been charged with "attacking a law enforcement officer in a group," during the July 27 Moscow rally.
In total, seven people were handed verdicts by courts in Moscow on December 6 on charges stemming from the wave of protests that erupted in the Russian capital this past summer.
Zhukov was initially charged with mass unrest as a result of his participation in the protests, but amid an outcry from his student supporters, prosecutors reclassified the case against him.
The last video he posted before being detained had been viewed more than 300,000 times as of December 5. The videos posted to his YouTube channel, by his supporters and allies, since his arrest have garnered hundreds of thousands more.