Another tragedy has come out of Russia.

It has become known that Georgy Minasyan, a man whom the Russian authorities accused of “justifying terrorism,” has died. The criminal case against him was based on a single sentence he posted online under a publication about the shelling of Belgorod on December 30, 2023:

“The response came for yesterday’s lawlessness. Now they’re whining.”

Investigators interpreted these words as “justification of terrorism.” In essence, Georgy merely implied that Ukraine’s retaliatory strike could have been a response to previous events.

For that, he was labeled a “terrorist.”

Not a man who expressed a controversial opinion. Not the author of a disputed comment. A terrorist.

He was added to Russia’s financial monitoring blacklist of terrorists and extremists. This is not merely a bureaucratic register—it almost destroys a person’s normal life. Bank accounts are frozen, access to personal funds is severely restricted, and the public nature of the blacklist makes finding employment nearly impossible. On top of that, prosecutors demanded five years in prison.

Five years—for a single sentence on the internet.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of a war in which entire cities have been reduced to ruins, while the deaths of civilians have become the subject of numerous international investigations. Mariupol. Bucha. Places where civilians died under airstrikes and artillery fire or were killed face to face by Russian forces.

Yet it is the man who merely suggested that Ukraine has the right to resist who is officially branded a terrorist.

Now Georgy Minasyan is dead. He was found dead in a forest. The official cause of death has not yet been established. It was previously reported that after prosecutors requested a real prison sentence, he told acquaintances that if the court sentenced him to prison, he might take his own life. Whether this was connected to his death remains unknown.

But what is most striking is something else.

The man whom the state called a terrorist did not commit a bombing, a murder, or take hostages. He was prosecuted for words. A single short sentence.

And in the end, he was broken to the point that he did not live to hear the verdict.

There is a grim symbolism in this. Those whom much of the world accuses of war crimes continue to hold high office, issue orders, and live their lives. Meanwhile, a man declared a “terrorist” inside his own country for a few words on the internet disappears under the weight of the pressure imposed by the state.

Sometimes the true nature of a system is revealed not by slogans, but by the fate of individual human beings.