Russian teen jailed for trying to blow up government building in ‘Minecraft’

nme.com:

Minecraft were discovered on a group of youth’s phones.As reported by Moscow Times (via Eurogamer), three teens – Nikita Uvarov, Denis Mikhailenko, and Bogdan Andreyev – were all 14 when they were arrested in 2020 for hanging political leaflets around an FSB building in Siberia.

The FSB is Russia’s security service, and is the successor of the KGB.The trio have since been found guilty of “undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities,” which the state says includes plotting to blow up an FSB building they had constructed in Minecraft.This was discovered via the teens’ phones, which – as well as showing a plot to blow up the building in Minecraft – allegedly also included videos of them making pyrotechnics and throwing Molotov cocktails at a wall.Now, Uvarov has been issued a five year sentence to be carried out at a penal colony, whilst Mikhailenko and Andreyev were given three and four-year suspended sentences respectively.Before being given a harsher sentence for his part in the Minecraft “plot”, Uvarov was kept at a pre-trial detention centre where he says he was put under mental and physical pressure.In his closing statement to court, Uvarov said “I am not a terrorist, I am not guilty,” and added that he “would just like to finish my studies, get an education and go somewhere far away from here, somewhere I don’t irritate anyone from the special services.”Earlier in the week, it was announced that the ‘My Wedding Stories‘ pack for The Sims 4 will not launch in Russia due to the country’s homophobic law.

In other news, Nintendo has said that it “appreciates” law enforcement, after the U.S. government sentenced Gary Bowser to three years in prison for his role in selling “illegal devices”.