By Jove, I think you've got it. More than a year is for felonies only, at least here. The charge didn't fit very well the crime.
Indeed, they were charged with felony-level hooliganism.
The courts are one way to suppress politically-inconvenient critics. Just look at the recent cases of Max Abramson and Ademo Freeman.
Max is a town councellor who's an outspoken critic of the corrupt and self-dealing Seabrook, NH police department, and they railroaded him on felony reckless conduct for firing a gun into the ground next to his feet in order to break up a bloody drunken brawl among miscreant, known-criminal acquaintances of his roommate.
Ademo Freeman, who reports for CopBlock.org, just got railroaded on felony wiretapping for recording phone interviews with the police department and the school principal after a cop was caught on tape slamming a student's head into a table.
If you piss off people who have control of the justice system, you can't expect justice from the system. This case in Russia is just another example.