YEKATERINBURG, April 18. /TASS/. A criminal case on advocating terrorism has been opened against Yekaterinburg activist Yaroslav Shirshikov, a source in law enforcement told TASS.

"With regard to Shirshikov, investigators have opened a criminal case under Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (Public calls for terrorist activity, public justification of terrorism or propaganda of terrorism using the Internet)," the source said, specifying that Shirshikov was indeed a suspect.

According to the source, the case was opened after a post advocating a terror attack against military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was uncovered.

On his Telegram channel, the suspect wrote that he gave an interview to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who was later arrested for espionage. Information about these publications was printed by a number of media outlets.

In March 2020, Shirshikov was convicted on two criminal charges, namely calling for mass disturbances against the construction of the Cathedral of St. Catherine in downtown Yekaterinburg and for slandering then Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Ural Federal District Nikolay Tsukanov. In the summer of 2022, Shirshikov was fined 40,000 rubles ($490) for discrediting Russia’s Armed Forces.

In Yekaterinburg, Shirshikov is known as something of an eccentric. For instance, he proclaimed himself the head of the Russian Pastafarian Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and called for bringing back the order of hussars. He works as a political consultant and a PR expert. Among other things, in 2017, he headed the political campaign for Yekaterinburg entrepreneur and founder of the Monarchist Party Anton Bakov in his bid to become president of Russia. In 2018, Shirshikov went to Vladivostok to help Andrey Ishchenko from the Communist Party run for governor of the Primorsky Region.