Why This Russian Minecraft Griefer Was ARRESTED

Imagine this you’re planning to ignite some tnt in minecraft only for the police to show up at your house and arrest you not because you grieved but because you were planning to grief sounds crazy right for one russian teenager this scenario became a reality a few weeks ago this story was all over

The internet even making its way to mainstream media outlets a military court in siberia sentenced a 16 year old to five years in jail for using minecraft to quote train for suspicious activities when i first saw the headline i was in disbelief i’ve covered the topic of griefing in minecraft for many

Years on this channel but i’ve never heard of a massive real-life penalty being given to a griefer before which is why after reading the initial news story i was skeptical was minecraft griefing really the crime in this case or was there more going on beyond the headlines

It felt like we weren’t getting the real story most of the articles in english didn’t actually specify how minecraft was involved beyond what was said in the headlines so i knew we had to dig deeper to find the real story and the rabbit hole went much deeper than i was expecting

Today we are analyzing the story of one russian teenager’s lengthy prison sentence over minecraft and doing our best to dissect the truth from an otherwise outrageous headline how much of this is actually real and how much is just a catchy title trying to get clicks on news sites so what led to these

Russian teenagers getting arrested over minecraft griefing and how much of this story is actually truth well it’s complicated so i do have to put a disclaimer per youtube guidelines all discussion of criminal activity in today’s video is for educational purposes all information photographs and names have been taken

From public sources the faces of those involved have been censored that being said let’s begin on february 10 2022 news articles started circulating about a russian teenager being sentenced to five years in prison over minecraft it was first reported by the guardian before eventually being covered by other news outlets allegedly the russian

Teenager and two of his friends had been communicating on their phones and planned to create a replica of an fsb building in minecraft once finished they would then proceed to blow it up with tnt now fsb is an english abbreviation for the federal security service which is russia’s primary security agency

If you’re an american it’s similar to the cia or if you’re british it’s similar to mi6 you get the idea the fsb does not mess around with anything that seems like a threat the military court ruled that by them planning to perform this grief in minecraft they were actually training for suspicious

Activities the leader of the three pleaded not guilty claiming he never had any intentions of blowing anything up but was still sentenced to five years the other two were given suspended sentences due to their cooperation with investigators on the english news sites this is pretty much where the story ends

Not much else is stated other than investigators claiming the teens were also learning to make explosive devices and detonating them in abandoned buildings after reading through a few of these articles something was off five years of prison time for a video game grief seemed extremely harsh the titles really made it seem like

Minecraft was the primary reason for the arrests yet the game is hardly even mentioned in the articles themselves it almost felt like a big part of the story was missing i knew it was time to get in touch with actual russian citizens that could provide more context for this news

Story one of my contacts provided information and pointed me towards two russian publications one was anti-state and one was pro-state despite being on opposite sides of the russian political spectrum both media outlets had covered this story with great accuracy even more so than their english-speaking counterparts according to them the boys

Were first detained in the summer of 2020 for spreading leaflets in support of a moscow mathematician and anarchist who was on trial for vandalism after police had confiscated their phones they discovered a group chat existed in the app telegram the boys had discussed instructions on how to create landmines

Malt of cocktails fuses and instructions for knife fighting as well as other anarchy type literature not only were these discussions taking place but they had been posting videos of themselves using some of the explosives at some point in the chat it was mentioned that they should blow up an fsb building in

Minecraft some have speculated that this could have been a form of the in minecraft meme if you don’t know over the past few years adding in minecraft at the end of posts on social media has become a method to bypass platform terms of service a practice that started on

4chan back in 2018. for example if you went on a website like twitter and posted that you were going to beat someone up that could be considered a threat and your twitter account could be suspended or even banned but if you said you were going to beat someone up in

Minecraft it implies that there is no actual threat and therefore the messages are less likely to be reported since minecraft is one of the most popular video games in the world talking about doing something in game makes the message seem more innocent of course adding this phrase at the end of a

Threat does not suddenly protect someone from legal ramifications it can still be seen as a threat and pretty much all security agencies have caught on to this meme but this is how minecraft was brought up in their group chat and while the boys claimed that that part of the

Conversation was a joke prosecutors saw it as a legitimate threat and just another part of the mountain of evidence against them the entire ordeal came to be known as the khansk affair with some russian human rights groups claiming the entire case was a form of political persecution against the boys but

Eventually the court produced a verdict guilty many on russian social media claimed that the boys were just being boys and that this was a major overreaction to what was simply juvenile delinquency others defended the decision of the courts saying that their actions were legitimately dangerous and a threat

Regardless of whether the boys were innocent or guilty there’s a clear issue here minecraft had played only a small role in this story so why did every english-speaking website make it seem like minecraft briefing was the sole reason for the arrests it’s simple media outlets completely stripped this story

Of all political context and backstory just so they could focus on minecraft as click bait for their articles a story about russian teenagers getting arrested for making dangerous materials won’t get people to read a news story but saying they were arrested for a minecraft grief instantly raises eyebrows and gets

People to click the majority of these articles were incredibly misleading about what the real story was about if you only read the headlines you’d have no idea that an alleged minecraft threat was just one of many pieces of evidence that were used by the prosecutors and that human rights groups

Claimed the entire case was a sham created as a form of political persecution there’s actually more to this story that i couldn’t discuss because of youtube’s terms of service so i highly suggest you look more into it and make your own judgments if you found this video informative make sure to

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