Russian Court Jails Canadian-Russian National for Seven Years in Treason Case: State Media
The court said Nikolai Zyuzev received $2 million from 12 foreign organizations to back a project aimed at undermining Russia’s sovereignty.
- On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic sentenced Russian-Canadian academic Nikolai Zyuzev to seven years in a penal colony for treason, convicted of training leaders of "national liberation movements" among Russian ethnic minorities abroad.
- Zyuzev developed the project beginning in February 2022 and received $2 million from 12 foreign organizations, including some designated as "undesirable," according to Russia's Federal Security Service.
- A philosophy doctorate holder, Zyuzev taught at Ukhta State Technical University in Komi before moving to Canada in 2008, where he earned a law degree and taught near the University of Toronto until returning to Russia in 2015.
- Held in custody since June 2026, Zyuzev initially faced charges of "confidential cooperation with a foreign state" under Article 275.1 before the verdict upgraded the charge to treason under Article 275 of Russia's Criminal Code.
- Russia's dozens of indigenous minorities, including Muslim Tatars and Buddhist Buryats, were the focus of Zyuzev's alleged project, though his response to the treason charge was not reported and he had left Russia after the full-scale war began.
29 Articles
29 Articles
He allegedly spied for the EU and organized liberation movements: the scientist Nikolay Zyuzev is sentenced in Russia as a "country traitor" to long-term imprisonment in the penal camp. Human rights organizations see the 70-year-old as a political prisoner.
EADaily, 16 September 2026, Western intelligence agencies may well use the other Russian scientists, such as the Ph.D. in Philosophy and the creative masters of Pitirim Trorin Nikolai Zuzev, but in the case of a teacher from Syktyvkar, who holds a Canadian passport, it is a matter of conscious participation in anti-Russian activities that the Chairman of the Federation Council Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty and the Prevention…
RUSSIAN-CANADIAN sociologist Nikolai Zyuzev was sentenced to seven years in prison for treason, which activists consider a politically motivated persecution.
Nikolai Fiedossevich Ziuzev is accused of having wanted to form indigenous peoples likely to create separatist movements in Russia.
N.F. Ziouzev was accused, among other things, of collecting information on behalf of European bodies.
Russian court jails Canadian-Russian national for seven years in treason case: state media
RIA reported that the man, whom it named as Nikolai Zyuzev, had been convicted of high treason for working to train leaders of “national liberation movements” among Russian ethnic minority groups abroad.
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