Alexey Soldatov, 72, a Russian Internet pioneer and a founder of the first Internet provider in the country, has been sentenced by a court to two years in a labour colony on charges of "abuse of power."

Soldatov had been detained by a court in Moscow. He is terminally ill and few Russians believe in the government charges against him.

Soldatov was accused of abuse of power when managing a pool of IP addresses by an organisation. The problem here is that Soldatov had no role in that company. This legal absurdity was enough to see him imprisoned even though the court knew of Soldatov's illness, which meant the court had no legal right to pass a custodial sentence. His family believes that the decision is essentially a death sentence.

Soldatov was pivotal in creating the Relcom network, which connected Soviet research centres and established the Soviet Union's first link to the global internet in 1990. During the 1991 KGB coup attempt, Relcom remained operational, highlighting its role in bypassing traditional media control and connecting people both within the Soviet Union and globally.