[1] A Russian human rights organization, Memorial, characterized the case against the three Kansk teens as political persecution.
The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against all three boys who were charged with training for terrorist activity[5] with the goal of changing "the existing state and political structure in the Russian Federation".
[7] The prosecutors discovered that the boys had engaged in backyard chemical experiments, with their parents' knowledge, including making a saltpeter smoke device and an improvised Molotov cocktail.
[10] In November 2020, Denis Mikhailenko was transferred from the home arrest to pretrial detention in prison after the authorities accused him of violating the prohibition on using the internet.
[14] On March 9, 2021, Novaya Gazeta reported that the Investigative Committee of Russia dropped the more serious criminal charge against the three boys, added in November 2020, of organizing a terror group, because of the absence of the necessary elements of the crime.
[17] On May 4, 2021, Nikita Uvarov was released from prison, after a Krasnoyarsk Krai court found his continued pretrial confinement illegal.
[19] On February 10, 2022, Nikita Uvarov, 16, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony by a military court in Siberia on charges of "terrorist training."
[25] In March 2021, a leading Russian human rights organization, Memorial, classified the case against the three Kansk teens as political persecution.