Wish Nikita a Happy Birthday!
Submitted by Редакция on 15 August, 2026 - 01:19
From Telegram channel of Support Group of Kansk Teenagers:
Wish Nikita a Happy Birthday!
On August 17, Nikita Uvarov will turn 21. It’s hard to believe, because when we began the campaign in support of Nikita and the other defendants in the “Kansk teenagers case”, he was 15 years old — and he was only 14 when he was detained. In 2022, a court sentenced Nikita to five years in prison, and he was supposed to be released at the age of 20. But Nikita is now turning 21, and he is still behind bars. How did this happen?
In the summer of 2020, in the city of Kansk in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, Nikita Uvarov and his friends, who shared anarchist ideals, put up leaflets supporting political prisoners and criticizing the state. One of the leaflets was posted on the building of the local FSB office.
Some time later, the teenagers were detained. Security officials put pressure on the young people and their parents and forced them to unlock their phones. Later, based on messages found on the phones and statements obtained under pressure from Denis Mikhaylenko and Bogdan Andreyev, the authorities fabricated a case accusing them of “training for terrorism” — alleging that the teenagers had been preparing to blow up the FSB building in Kansk.
On February 10, 2022, Nikita was sentenced to five years in prison, while Mikhaylenko and Andreyev received suspended sentences. By then, Nikita had already spent almost a year in pretrial detention and was due to be released in the spring of 2026.
A month before his release, a new case was fabricated against Nikita, accusing him of participating in the “AUE movement,” which has been designated extremist in Russia. Investigators claim that while in the penal colony, Nikita allegedly spread the “laws of the criminal world” among other prisoners. Yet Penal Colony No. 31, where he was serving his sentence, is a tightly controlled, or “red,” colony, where prison subculture exists only to the extent that the administration finds it useful.
It is particularly telling that the case was initiated on the basis of materials from the Krasnoyarsk regional FSB literally just before Nikita’s sentence was due to end. In February, Nikita was transferred to Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 (SIZO-1) in Krasnoyarsk, after which a court ordered him to remain in custody on the new charge. As a result, when March 19 — the day Nikita was supposed to be released — arrived, he did not walk free.
On August 7, the Sovetsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk once again granted the investigators’ request and extended Nikita’s detention in the pretrial detention center for another two months, until October 11.
It also became known that Nikita had been transferred to a solitary cell at the request of his defense team. In the 12-person cell where he had previously been held, Nikita was afraid to speak with his cellmates, who were actively asking him about what had happened in the penal colony, because such conversations could also be added to the case as evidence of “spreading criminal subculture.”
Under the new charges, Nikita faces another two to six years in prison. Nikita will once again spend his birthday — his 21st — behind bars. That is why we are asking you to wish him a happy birthday and remind him that throughout all these years, people have remembered him and are waiting for him to be free.
Nikita’s birthday is very soon, so we recommend using electronic services to send letters.
Letters can be sent via the services PrisonMail.Online. Instructions for Filling the form:
Region: Krasnoyarsk region
Prison: SIZO-1 Krasnoyarsk
Prisoner last name: Уваров
Prisoner first name: Никита
Prisoner middle name: Андреевич
Prisoner year of birth: 2005
Regular mail address is
660075, РФ, г. Красноярск, ул. Республики, 72, СИЗО-1, Уваров Никита Андреевич 2005 г. р.
Address should be written in Russian.
Anarchist Black Cross Moscow
You may find the contact addresses of all prisoners in Russia supported by Anarchist Black Cross Moscow here. If you want to make a donation to a particular prisoner or case, please contact us beforehand via e-mail to make sure that the supporters of the prisoner or case are currently gathering donations, our e-mail is the same as the listed PayPal account. We are present in Telegram and Facebook, you may sign up to our e-mail newsletter here.
Until everyone is free, no one is free!
Photo: Novaya Gazeta
