Russia Sentences Teens Over 'Terrorist' Plot To Blow Up Minecraft FSB Building (themoscowtimes.com) 98
A Russian court has sentenced three Siberian teenagers for terrorism Thursday for activities including plotting to blow up a virtual Federal Security Services (FSB) building in the popular online game Minecraft. From a report: Nikita Uvarov, Denis Mikhailenko and Bogdan Andreyev from Kansk, a town in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region, were arrested in June 2020 for hanging up political leaflets on the local FSB office that included slogans such as "the FSB is the main terrorist" and support for Azat Miftakhov, an anarchist who was sentenced to six years in prison. All three suspects were 14 at the time of their arrest. The Eastern Military Court in Krasnoyarsk found Uvarov, Mikhailenko and Andreyev guilty of "undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities" on Thursday. Uvarov was sentenced to five years in a penal colony, while Mikhailenko and Andreyev were handed three and four-year suspended sentences.
"in Minecraft" (Score:5, Funny)
I guess adding "in Minecraft" to the end of threats doesn't work in Russia.
Re:"in Minecraft" (Score:5, Insightful)
The thought police are active in Russia once again.
Re:"in Minecraft" (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the actual case. It is nothing like the article.
You're right, on top of plotting to destroy the video-game FSB building, they also distributed political fliers on the real FSB building, which is the real crime here.
Frankly, they're lucky they just got a terrorism charge instead of accidentally falling off a hotel balcony.
AC is right. Fuck off, Putin bot.
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Yeah, their actual crime was not limited to Minecraft. They were building actual bombs. Lol, my favorite part is the quote from one of the boys' mothers:
"I always knew where he was, even when they were making these bombs."
That makes it soo much better. It's not like he was making bombs at a stranger's house. And sure he almost blew up the house a few times, but at least he finished his homework first.
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2. The guy and 4 more juveniles (all the others were given conditional sentences and/or warnings):
2.1. Hired a flat purely for lab purposes.
2.2. Built multiple devices with actual explosives and tested them
2.3. Modelled what they wanted to do with the local FSB building in Minecraft. The piece of propaganda ratshit
Re:"in Minecraft" (Score:4, Informative)
1. The guy had a copy of the Anarchist cookbook. That is a jail term in every European country. Plain and simple. Just downloading it gets the police knocking on your door in good old England.
It's true it got them to knock on some doors.
Ultimately, attempting to put people on trial for it failed.
The government's attempt at prosecuting mere possession of it was called "Bizarre and unprecedented"
Hasn't happened since.
2.3. Modelled what they wanted to do with the local FSB building in Minecraft. The piece of propaganda ratshite which is fed to the coprophiliac masses which are ready to each any kind of shite as long as it is about nasty Russianses is mentioning just 2.3. Not the rest.
Objection, speculation.
Their intent is unclear, and the charge is for plotting to destroy the virtual representations.
The law itself prohibits "training for the real thing", but in standard Russian Fashion, needing to prove that was less important than putting some subversives on ice.
But, that was 40 years ago. Today the world is a different place. Unfortunately, everywhere around the world what he did - build actual explosives and calculate where to put them in the local branch of the FBI/FSB/Police/Gendarmerie/Whatever is punished. Usually by a bigger jail term. He actually got away lightly.
Negative.
That's thought police shit, right there.
Of course, if they can prove intent to commit an act of terrorism, then that's a different story, but that's not what happened here.
It's not exactly a secret that mens rea is not needed in Russia, particularly when you're politically active.
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Of course, if they can prove intent to commit an act of terrorism, then that's a different story, but that's not what happened here.
How exactly can such a charge be proven if what they did doesn't qualify? It seems you'd only consider it actual intent to commit terrorism if they explicitly said they intended to really commit it. I'm not aware of any country in the world which essentially makes plots impossible to prosecute for anything short of an actual declaration of intent.
You've delineated a standard where drawing up what's indistinguishable from a plan to attack a real target, one you've scouted in person and put political fliers
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How exactly can such a charge be proven if what they did doesn't qualify? It seems you'd only consider it actual intent to commit terrorism if they explicitly said they intended to really commit it. I'm not aware of any country in the world which essentially makes plots impossible to prosecute for anything short of an actual declaration of intent.
Nonsense. It's highly unlikely you don't live in just such a country.
You've delineated a standard where drawing up what's indistinguishable from a plan to attack a real target, one you've scouted in person and put political fliers on expressing an opinion they're the terrorists (which is correct in this case, but anyway), and acquiring and building actual explosives, aren't indicative of intent to carry it out.
Nope. They aren't. Criminal conspiracy to commit a crime doesn't include acting out such a crime in synthetic situations. It requires both mens rea (criminal intent) and affirmative action toward committing the crime.
Could you imagine if it did include anyone who mocked out a criminal act? Egads- every militia in the US would be a criminal organization.
Hell, you'd likely be a criminal yourself.
It's clear your opinion of the Russian government, well justified though it may be especially given the bullshit reason they were investigated to begin with, is influencing your opinion here... I'd say there's few to no countries that the same conduct couldn't be prosecuted in.
Absolutely it influences my opinion- but re
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Following their arrests, the FSB searched the teens’ phones, where they uncovered videos of them making pyrotechnics and allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at a wall, as well as a plot to blow up a virtual FSB building they had built in Minecraft. the linked article isnt completely clear id say , they werent building bombs and throwing molotovs "in minecraft" if i read correctly - which here probably would get you a knock on the door too - although maybe not five years of penal colony. The last
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According to who, again?
According to who, again?
Surely the FSB wouldn't just lie about someone leafleting their building, would they? Or even exaggerate the threat?
There are many here in the west too, who feel that if a government person of authority says it, it's obscene to question it.
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Both according to the three sentenced criminals and material evidence presented in court. They freely admitted to all of that and much more. Hard to deny existence of material evidence found in your house, that you actually took videos of making and testing.
This is a story from media source that wrote a lot of stories trying to defend the three with very emotional arguments, everything from a story literally called "save the children" to a lot of touching images of each of the guys with their mothers. And e
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Re:"in Minecraft" (Score:4, Funny)
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So I went down the rabbit hole of the links in the original story (I'm fluent in Russian), and it's just choke full of everything being awful.
The legislation is way too strict in the same way that US criminal code is. They really should have had suspended sentences for all three from what I could gather in my view.
But the accused themselves... good lord. I found opposition media that literally did a story titled "save the children" (linked below) about these three guys. They made a lot of statements admitti
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Oh, horseshit. You failed with your very first sentence, and everything else you typed falls down on that decrepit foundation. The Anarchist Cookbook is trash. Oh sure, for middle school kids who want to think they're edgy, it's a neat little thing to show off to your friends that you have a copy. But have you ever bothered to actually *read* it? I have. And if you had a working knowledge of chemistry and lab technique beyond the middle-school level... even high school chem 1 or 2 would suffice... you
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Yeah, even the guy who wrote it has said as much, and wishes the whole book would be forgotten. It was the product of a lot of drugs and scene nonsense in the 1970s, and has very little to do with either "Anarchism" or for that manner actually making the things it describes. Its responsible for a lot of edgy teenagers blowing their hands off.
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Oh sure, for middle school kids who want to think they're edgy, it's a neat little thing to show off to your friends that you have a copy. But have you ever bothered to actually *read* it?
Thank you, I don't think many people have. I remember part of the instructions for making (iirc) black powder included drying it out in a pan over an open flame. I was in middle school at the time and I realized how trash it was pretty quickly.
Virtual Terrorism? (Score:2)
Re: Virtual Terrorism? (Score:3)
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So this is how WWIII starts, through the proliferation of TNT. Gonna have to update Dr. Strangelove now.
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Starting a World War doesn't require TNT, a bullet will do [wikipedia.org], and near armageddon not even a bullet. [wikipedia.org]
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The article doesn't make it clear if they were arrested for plotting to blow up a specific building in Minecraft of for making bombs and putting up subversive posters. I can't imagine the number of people that would end up in a gulag if you could get arrested for blowing up a building in Minecraft.
Well, look on the bright side.
At least it's a virtual gulag.
Re:Virtual Terrorism? (Score:5, Interesting)
The article doesn't make it clear if they were arrested for plotting to blow up a specific building in Minecraft of for making bombs and putting up subversive posters.
TFA indicates that all of these items are part of the charges.
What's sadly funny is that - per the article - the virtual FSB building they were "plotting" to blow up was one they themselves had built in-game.
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FTA - "Following their arrests, the FSB searched the teens’ phones, where they uncovered videos of them making pyrotechnics and allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at a wall, as well as a plot to blow up a virtual FSB building they had built in Minecraft."
So, was the planned virtual attack just gameplay, or a rehearsal for a real attack? Very different implications between the two.
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So, was the planned virtual attack just gameplay, or a rehearsal for a real attack? Very different implications between the two.
Not in Russia, not when you've been busted for vandalizing a United Russia office and posting political fliers.
They're lucky they're so young. Probably avoided accidental polonium poisoning.
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Imagine being so swallowed by propaganda, as to think that sovereign states use same means to assassinate people abroad as they do to punish people at home.
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You're right- they save the polonium and nerve agents for people who need to die with very little interaction.
Political dissidents usually fall from sudden deceleration after prolonged periods of freefall.
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That's what I said you absolute brainlet. You don't need to murder domestic opponents. You have a justice system to handle that. Prisons are way more effective than tools of murder. Just look at what happened to Navalny
That said, I'm also not a racist nutjob like you, so I actually went and read the Russian opposition media that wrote a lot of emotional appeals for those three. This is zero percent political. These three were dumbasses larping as anarcho-terrorists, making bombs, testing them and videotapin
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You don't need to murder domestic opponents.
And yet, they do.
Just look at what happened to Navalny
Extrajudicial murder in Russia seems to be difficult to understand.
Some people fall to their deaths, or get gunned down in the street... Some just rot in a prison.
That said, I'm also not a racist nutjob like you, so I actually went and read the Russian opposition media that wrote a lot of emotional appeals for those three. This is zero percent political. These three were dumbasses larping as anarcho-terrorists, making bombs, testing them and videotaping themselves doing all that. All while posting threatening leaflets on government buildings AND talking about their plans in online chatrooms that permanently stored the chats on their devices. So when they got arrested and their homes got searched, all of that became material evidence. All three of the convicts admitted to all of those things, both in court and to opposition media trying to make them look as good as possible.
You were going good until you started literally making shit up.
They were in fact three dumbasses larping as anarchisto-terrorists.
They made some things that you could call a bomb, if you were desperate enough to paint them with a brush. Most people call them firecrackers.
The leaflets posted on government buildings are again, o
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>They made some things that you could call a bomb
They admitted, in their own words to making and testing many bombs of different kinds. Flash bombs, smoke bombs, "small bombs" whatever that means. Story suggests they meant conventional explosives by that. Material evidence such as multiple tests of said bombs were also captured by convicts on video, done in abandoned buildings in their town among other places. They also admit. in their own words to threatening violence against various branches of the gov
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They admitted, in their own words to making and testing many bombs of different kinds. Flash bombs, smoke bombs, "small bombs" whatever that means. Story suggests they meant conventional explosives by that. Material evidence such as multiple tests of said bombs were also captured by convicts on video, done in abandoned buildings in their town among other places. They also admit. in their own words to threatening violence against various branches of the government. Their excuse is "life in this small town is really tough and other two guys instigated the whole thing, and that makes me totally not a terrorist". Finally, they openly discuss their plans in private chatrooms which these idiots didn't even wipe, so it all literally fell into the lap of the police when their homes were searched. Dumb, young, stupid, hates life and most people, violent.
Flash bombs. Smoke bombs. Small bombs. I did worse as a kid.
As for threatening violence, you're flat out lying here.
Not even Russian media suggests that much.
They advocated for the release of what they considered political prisoners.
In their chat room, they discussed the creation of their "bombs" (which is why we know that calling them a bomb is pretty fucking laughable) and the construction of government buildings in Minecraft.
Ignorant and stupid. Hell of a combination.
Claim without evidence. How quaint.
No you absolute brainlet. I'm saying that it is JUST AS politically motivated as this story. Government actually should prosecute young dumbasses who make open threats against the government while testing out various lethal and non-lethal explosives and incendiaries, while openly talking about their plans on how to deploy them in the most efficient way among themselves.
Government shouldn't prosecute people for
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>Flash bombs. Smoke bombs. Small bombs. I did worse as a kid.
Congratulations. Try doing this now and see hot ATF reacts.
Actually don't. I think you're stupid and wrong, but I don't wish ill upon you. And if you do, ATF will fuck you up. Badly. For life.
>As for threatening violence, you're flat out lying here.
>Not even Russian media suggests that much.
I literally posted links to well known opposition media that did it's damnest to portray these three in the most positive light possible. And even the
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Congratulations. Try doing this now and see hot ATF reacts.
I set off small explosives every single year, along with a huge fucking number of people in this country.
I literally posted links to well known opposition media that did it's damnest to portray these three in the most positive light possible. And even they admitted to the threats. I understand that as some that doesn't speak the language, doesn't want to know anything that doesn't agree with his world view, and is frankly not intelligent enough to even run the stories I linked in this thread through google translate, you may think that this doesn't exist.
https://novayagazeta.ru/articl... [novayagazeta.ru] - your link, not mine.
I read it. It specifically says there were no threats of violence, unless of course you call declaring the Russian State to be the real terrorists a threat.
As I said, you're a liar.
You... need evidence on just how extreme ATF is when dealing with people building wide variety of what they call "destructive devices" in their garages without the FFL, relevant paperwork and checks? You didn't follow any news in your own nation for last two decades since ATF started doing the extreme anti-gun raids that occur in their current form? You can't just google it? Or what making threats like those kids did does to that license, and just how many of your fundamental civil rights you have to voluntarily give up on to have a chance of getting it?
I'm a bloody foreigner and even I know what approximate requirements. What is wrong with you?
An FFL is not required for explosives.
For military-grade explosives, you do need an FEL, though. These are not those.
So no, you don't know the approximate requireme
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I set off small explosives every single year, along with a huge fucking number of people in this country.
Firecrackers are totally the same things as anti-personnel explosives. Totally. There's no difference. ATF will totally just let you make whatever explosives you want and doesn't put severe limitations on what is legal and what isn't.
I'm just done with you. Best of luck with the rest of your life.
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I recognize that Minecraft [youtube.com] may lack some of the refinement of military rehearsal techniques [www.bmvg.de], like those of the Bundesweher [www.bmvg.de], but there may be more potential than you recognize.
.
Since the week isn't over and the month is young you may make other discoveries.
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Perhaps you could share your thinking with us? How do you think the possibilities offered by Minecraft to recreate buildings and cityscapes as shown in the first link suffer in comparison to the use of sand tables for rehearsals such as that shown in the second link? Keep in mind that the use of sand tables for rehearsals is common for the military, and they have their limits.
Sandt table: This string represents the street, and the paper cup is the building.
Minecraft: The street scene represents the str
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They supported an anarchist while show the potential to be a threat to the state.
A court handing down multi-year sentences for a "plot" to blow up a minecraft building is newsworthy and does not reflect well on the Russian criminal justice system.
But hey, at least they weren't poisoned!
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All terrorism related charges in Russia are handled by the military, not civil authorities.
The "rule of law" for the military is interesting, like when they convicted a journalist in 2018 for "justifying terrorism" in a military court.
You do know that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok on Russian soil, right?
What's your angle, dude? You some weird Russian ex-pat, reminiscing for the glory days under the People's Commissariat?
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>All terrorism related charges in Russia are handled by the military, not civil authorities.
Funny how these three got convicted in civil court on terrorism charges. It helps to not be opionated and ignorant, like you.
>You do know that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok on Russian soil, right?
I know that this was his team's claim, and they found hilarious evidence... in his underwear. In a foreign lab under political pressure to spin the story. They also found that in spite of being on home soil, in sp
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Funny how these three got convicted in civil court on terrorism charges. It helps to not be opionated and ignorant, like you.
No, they didn't, you lying sack of shit.
They were convicted in the Eastern Military Court in Krasnoyarsk.
I know that this was his team's claim, and they found hilarious evidence... in his underwear. In a foreign lab under political pressure to spin the story. They also found that in spite of being on home soil, in spite of having wide ranging access to everything from Chechen hitmen (Kadyrov literally threatened this), in spite of having easy access to the man to imprison him at will (which is what actually happened to him in the end), Russian intelligence were supposedly so grossly incompetent as to fail to kill him with really rare poison that has name recognition in the West instead.
It actually wasn't his team's claim. It was the claim of the Germans who treated him.
Regardless of anything that was said by anyone in Russia, the Germans found evidence of poisoning via Novichok.
Yes, totally. I love Communism. Just one look at my posting history, venting at Oregonian retards who think socialism and communism has never been tried and can totally work if they were the ones doing it, it makes it clear that I absolutely love the glory days of Soviet Union.
Oh I don't think you love Communism.
Putin doesn't love communism either. Lots of people in the Soviet Union didn't love communism. They just loved absolute power and strongmen.
You're a liar, and a fucking m
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I'm reminded of a time in High School (back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth) where a friend and I had a purely theoretical discussion of how to grind New York City to a halt for weeks using only a few brief cases (firebombs), a municipal utility map, and bus tickets. We had no intention whatsoever of actually implementing the plan. That was a much less paranoid authoritarian time.
Fully realizing MASH was just a TV show, I am convinced that after the war Frank Burns was cloned and put in charge of variou
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Yes, the very scary anarchist mathematician Azat Mitfakhov.
It's bad enough that people go around assuming "he must have done something to deserve it" about people OUR governments throw in jail, but for people accused of political crimes in Russia? I'd though petty authoritarianism would at least question it for team loyalty reasons, if nothing else.
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I assume they'll be put in virtual jail for this. Maybe a Minecraft jailcell in the basement of the FSB Minecraft building?
Damn... (Score:2)
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Reminds me of the beauty of carmageddon.
Siberia (Score:2)
It used to be a thing in the soviet union to live in fear of getting sentenced to Siberia .. but these kids are *from* Siberia. What do they do now?
Re: Siberia (Score:2)
Easy, send them somewhere hot
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Siberia covers a lot of territory, some of it very empty, lonely, and cold.
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Not so lonely. We have moose.
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Good: Moose
Better: Moose & Squirrel
When even the herring wears a fur coat you know you're in Russia (or pretty close).
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It used to be a thing in the soviet union to live in fear of getting sentenced to Siberia .. but these kids are *from* Siberia. What do they do now?
Perhaps they get sent to Vostok Station [wikipedia.org].
Re:Siberia (Score:5, Informative)
Siberia is gigantic. It's nearly as big as 20 Texases, yet it has the population density of Wyoming. As you'd expect with a region spanning that large an area, there's a huge degree of geographic variation, much of which isn't prime real estate. To say the least, it isn't hard to find places where no one lives or wants to live.
I mean, just think about the variation we see in places like California. It covers everything from Death Valley to Silicon Valley, one of which is a lifeless region known for being inhospitable to anyone who lacks adequate supplies or provision for shelter, whereas the other is known for getting unpleasantly warm.
Classic Reverse (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia, Minecraft serves you!
6.5 Exabytes of Virtual Terrorism. (Score:2)
I'm guessing we're writing summaries this bad, to try and make us forget about that whole unicode thing?
I mean, damn.
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It's incompetence, not an attempt to thwart. Doxing, spam, poor editing, and more. Most of these thing like virtual "false flags" for aggressive antics in politics -- "Hey look how bad China/Russia is!"... The sites dead but thankfully because it's dead, it's easy enough to access in China and I can save VPN usage for things that actually matter beyond "social media"... like downloading porn.
Nope, just a poor title (Score:2)
Bad headlines never stopped ./ before.
"...for activities including..."
"I always knew where he was, even when they were making these bombs. But it was a small, childish prank, a child's bomb," Mikhailenko’s mother said last year.
“I had a desire to learn something new, I liked to learn something about physics, chemistry, biology, about various famous scientists; I also watched scientific and educational programs,” Uravov said in his address to court Thursday.
Is this why Russia is threatening Ukraine? (Score:4)
Has Ukraine been encroaching on Russian Minecraft territory? Or perhaps writing mods of mass destruction to be used against Russia’s favorite servers?
It could make sense once you realize that certain political leaders can’t distinguish fantasy from reality.
subversion (Score:2)
Minecraft is now subverting teens? The FSB must be consulting with Jack Thompson on this.
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Sounds familiar. (Score:1)
The USSR is gone. Russia, however . . . (Score:2)
With that said, the other side of the coin - it seems like here in the US, we're discovering a need to keep an eye on what our kids are doing online - online bullying, school shootings, etc. We're into saying this is a valid resource and predict
(minor correction) (Score:2)
Criticizing Putin was their real crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really anything more to say, other than they were lucky they didn't accidentally throw themselves out of a high rise window.
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Or drink tea.
Jesus Christ... (Score:3)
It's a freaking game... something that has NO direction on the real world.
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It's like modeling the Kremlin in Super Mario Maker and blowing it up.
Aliens charged for blowing up virtual whitehouse. (Score:1)
Arrested for plotting to overthrow planet, hovering over white house and firing giant space laser.
I'm just teasing about the article title, I realize there were more serious tangible offenses they committed.
Wait, I'm confused... (Score:2)
Wasn't this the FBI? (Score:1)
Are you sure this was the FSB, not the FBI? It sounds so much like the FBI's daily activities.
They should be given a virtual sentence (Score:2)
minecraft was irrelevant (Score:3)
Looking at russian sources (using google translate) this minecraft stuff was just a side topic. The case was mainly centered around manufacture of pyrotechnics and some kind of attack on Putin's party office (breaking a window and throwing in smoke bomb? Im not sure). Seems like pretty standard anarchist activist stuff.