(Adnkronos) – Nikolai Zyuzev, a 70-year-old Russian-Canadian academic, has been sentenced to seven years in prison in Russia for “high treason”. According to the Russian security services (FSB), the man allegedly collaborated with foreign organizations and promoted, at their behest, “national liberation movements of small ethnic groups” in Russia. The sentence was handed down in the Komi Republic, in northern Russia, Zyuzev’s region of origin. The FSB also accused him of disseminating “extremist materials” and acting against the country’s “territorial integrity”.
According to the human rights organization Memorial, which considers Zyuzev a political prisoner, the academic had left Russia after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in 2022, but had returned several times to his native village. He was reportedly arrested last summer during one of these visits.
Zyuzev had moved to Canada in 2008 and obtained Canadian citizenship in 2015. A philologist, philosopher, and historian of science, according to Memorial, he then returned to Russia to direct a research center in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic. The region is also inhabited by the Komi ethnic minority, and according to Russian media, Zyuzev spoke their language. Moscow has repeatedly accused Western countries of supporting separatist movements among Russian ethnic minorities.
