The Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced former police officer Ruslan Sentemov to three and a half years in prison, suspended, on charges of exceeding official authority with violence (Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code). The court also barred him from holding law enforcement positions involving representative authority for nearly two years. The prosecution had sought four years in a general-regime penal colony, according to Mediazona.
According to investigators, on the night of September 28, 2024, Sentemov arrived at a grocery store on Millionnaya Street, where police had detained the store's owner, Vardan Arutyunyan, for selling alcohol at night. Sentemov struck the businessman several times in the face, ears, nose and forehead, including with his head and fist, then forcibly pushed him back into a police car. The incident was captured on surveillance cameras.
Arutyunyan was diagnosed with a closed head injury, a concussion and bruises. Sentemov paid the victim 100,000 rubles as compensation for moral damages and issued a public apology. The former officer claimed he was not on duty at the time of the beating, but the court ruled otherwise.
Sentemov previously oversaw detentions at protest rallies and participated in detaining opposition activists in St. Petersburg. In 2018, he gained notoriety after telling a protester: “The President of the Russian Federation has obliged citizens to address me as ‘Mr. Police Officer.’”