A news story from Russia has raised serious questions about the scale and proportionality of punishment.
An apparently apolitical man has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for donating 1,500 rubles to the Artpodgotovka movement, which Russian authorities have designated as a terrorist organization.
Russian authorities consider Artpodgotovka a prohibited movement. First, in 2017–2018, it was declared an extremist organization, and later a community associated with its founder, Vyacheslav Maltsev, was designated as terrorist. The authorities cited calls for revolution as the basis for these decisions.
The defendant in the case is 55-year-old Match TV engineer Sergey Pimenov. According to investigators, he transferred 1,500 rubles to an account linked to Artpodgotovka. Pimenov described the transfer as a “human mistake” and stated that at the time he did not even know who Vyacheslav Maltsev was.
Before his arrest, Pimenov worked as an engineer for Match TV. In September 2025, he was placed in pre-trial detention. According to his lawyer, he had previously donated money on multiple occasions to support Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
The court found Pimenov guilty of financing terrorism and sentenced him to 9 years of imprisonment: 3 years in prison, followed by the remainder of the sentence in a maximum-security penal colony. He was also fined 350,000 rubles, while the original 1,500-ruble donation was confiscated by the state.
A few clicks and a transfer of 1,500 rubles resulted in nearly a decade behind bars.
But this inevitably raises a question.
If a donation of 1,500 rubles to an organization advocating political change is punished with 9 years in prison, how should one assess the consequences of decisions on an entirely different scale?
Since 2022, according to various estimates, the war has cost Russia approximately 56–60 trillion rubles when not only direct military expenditures but also the costs of maintaining the so-called “new regions” are taken into account. This amounts to roughly 600–750 billion US dollars.
In return, the country has received:
• millions of dead and wounded on both sides;
• millions of people who have lost their homes;
• the deepest rupture between Russians and Ukrainians in decades;
• sanctions and international isolation;
• a massive diversion of resources away from social needs and development.
But perhaps the most striking aspect is something else.
According to various estimates, only about 8% of the money spent on the war and related expenditures would have been enough to address a number of Russia’s most pressing social problems.
What Could Have Been Done With Approximately 8% of the Money Spent on the War
| Program | Beneficiaries | Number of People | Average Support | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing for all orphaned children in need | Orphans and graduates of orphanages | ~180,000 people | ~5 million RUB apartment | ~0.9 trillion RUB |
| Full elimination of the pension system deficit | Russian pensioners | ~41 million people | ~2,500 RUB additional monthly payment | ~1.24 trillion RUB |
| Expensive treatment for all children forced to rely on charity fundraising | Children with severe illnesses | Tens of thousands of children | From hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions RUB per child | ~0.2 trillion RUB |
| Expensive treatment for all Russian citizens with cancer, rare diseases, and severe diagnoses, whose treatment today is often funded through nationwide fundraising campaigns | Millions of patients | Millions of patients | From tens of thousands to tens of millions RUB | ~1–2 trillion RUB |
| Free higher education for all Russians | Tuition-paying students | ~2 million students | ~250,000 RUB per year per student | ~0.5 trillion RUB |
| Unemployment benefits at the subsistence minimum level for everyone facing hardship | Unemployed citizens | ~1.6 million people | ~19,300 RUB per month | ~0.37 trillion RUB |
The total cost of this package of measures would have been approximately 4.5 trillion rubles.
In other words, a relatively small share of the funds spent on the war and related expenditures could simultaneously have:
• provided housing for 180,000 orphans;
• eliminated the pension deficit affecting 41 million pensioners;
• funded expensive medical treatment for all those in need;
• made higher education free for all students in Russia;
• provided adequate support for 1.6 million unemployed citizens.
This concerns more than 45 million people, not including their family members and those who would have benefited from essential medical treatment.
And this does not even include the fact that the remaining funds could have financed large-scale interest-free mortgage programs for millions of Russian families, as well as unprecedented investments in science, technology, and innovation capable of placing Russia among the world’s leading nations in terms of investment in the future.
However, a different path was chosen.
A path centered on preserving a system in which political power remains unchanged, a system that has already led to Vladimir Putin’s fifth presidential term.
Of course, it is impossible to literally convert money into years of imprisonment. This is neither a legal calculation nor a real measure of responsibility.
Yet the logic of the comparison remains striking.
If a transfer of 1,500 rubles results in 9 years in prison, then what responsibility should be assigned to those whose decisions led to the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars and consequences affecting the lives of millions of people?
If one applies the same arithmetic logic of responsibility, the resulting figure becomes astronomical:
Approximately 4.5 Billion Years of Imprisonment.
Of course, this is merely a journalistic device intended to illustrate the enormous gap between punishment for a 1,500-ruble donation and the consequences of decisions that have affected the lives and destinies of millions.
Only one question remains:
Will there ever be a fair trial for those who give a person 9 years in prison for a donation of 1,500 rubles while directing enormous national resources not toward creation, development, and helping people, but toward destruction and war?
Source: the Telegram channel “Politzek-Info” — https://t.me/politzekinfo/9500