Photo: nurgunatakov / Instagram

A stand-up comedian from the republic of Yakutia in the Russian Far East has been charged with inciting hatred or enmity on ethnic grounds for jokes from a comedy set, Yakut Telegram channel Torboznoe Radio reported on Monday.

According to the channel, the case against Nyurgun Atakov, who now resides in Kazakhstan, was submitted to a court in the city of Yakutsk twice in June, but was rejected both times and returned to the police due to procedural violations.

The charges are thought to stem from jokes by the comedian about ethnic Russians and the Russian language from his live performances. Torboznoe Radio posted video footage in September of an Atakov set performed in Kazakhstan where he joked about the Russian language, Russians themselves and about how he loved Ukrainians and Belarusians, because “you can slag off Russians” with them.

This is not the first case of a Russian comedian attracting the authorities’ attention for jokes made during live sets. In March, Atakov’s fellow stand-up comedian Artemy Ostanin was detained in Belarus while trying to flee Russia. Having been beaten and humiliated by Belarusian policemen, Ostanin was handed back to the Russian authorities.

Ostanin’s comedy routine, which has since been deleted from YouTube, included a joke which come to the attention of pro-war blogger Alexey Zhivov, who in mid-March informed his Telegram channel’s 100,000 members that a stand-up comedian in Moscow had “joked gleefully” about disabled veterans of the war in Ukraine, which Ostanin denied. He currently awaits trial.