Two Network Case Defendants Married in Prison

Anastasia Pchelintseva and Anna Shalunkina after their weddings to Dmitry Pchelintsev and Maxim Ivankin. Photo courtesy of 7×7 and Novaya Gazeta

Two Defendants in Network Case Married in Prison
Novaya Gazeta
January 29, 2020

Dmitry Pchelintsev and Maxim Ivankin, two defendants in the Penza trial of the so-called Network (a terrorist organization banned in Russia)* have been married in remand prison, reports 7×7.

Registry Office workers registered Dmitry Pchelintsev’s marriage to his girlfriend, Anastasia Tymchuk, in the room on the premises of Penza Correctional Facility No. 4 where the defendants are currently held. Journalists, relatives, and friends of the couple were not allowed to attend the ceremony. Tymchuk reported that the groom made her a windcatcher as a wedding gift.

“It makes no difference what our life will be like from here on out: whatever the verdict and sentence are, we are still going to be together. We are still going to see this through to the end. We are going to seek the truth and do everything to secure [Dmitry’s] release,” Pchelintsev’s bride told journalists.

Another defendant in the case, Maxim Ivankin, registered his marriage to Anna Shalunkin at Penza Remand Prison No. 1. Ivankin had proposed to his girlfriend right in the courtroom after one of the hearings in the trial, presided over by judges from the Volga Military District Court.

“The whole procedure took two minutes,” Shalunkina said after the ceremony. “We only managed to ask each other how the other was doing. Whereas [Pchelintsev and Tymchuk] were allowed to sit next to each other and chat, here [in remand prison] there were two stools, a table, and a cage. I stood next to the table, and [Ivankin] stood in the cage. We were permitted to kiss each other only through the bars.”

Shalunkina explained that she had decided to marry Ivankin now because if he is found guilty, it is unclear where he will be taken to serve his sentence.

In August of last year, Yuli Boyarshinov, a defendant in the Petersburg portion of the Network Case, was married in remand prison. His bride wore a paper veil, and their wedding rings were fashioned from barbed wire.

A report about the weddings by 7×7

Eleven antifascists from Penza and Petersburg were arrested by the FSB several months before the 2018 presidential election. According to investigators they were planning to create armed groups in Moscow, Petersburg, Penza Region, and other Russian regions for attacking military garrisons, police officers, and United Russia party offices.

The trial in Penza against seven of the defendants—Maxim Ivankin, Vasily Kuksov, Mikhail Kulkov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, Arman Sagynbayeva, Andrei Chernov, and Ilya Shakursky—has concluded. All of them are charged with organizing [and/or] being involved in a “terrorist community.” Shakursky, Pchelintsev, and Kuksov also face charges of arms trafficking. On February 10, a panel of three judges from the Volga District Military Court will announce the verdict.

The case against Boyarshinov and Filinkov is being tried separately by the Moscow District Military Court, sitting in Petersburg.

Another defendant, Igor Shishkin, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

The defendants have reported that FSB officers tortured them to force confessions. In a complaint filed with the European Court of Human Rights, Filinkov said that FSB officers had beaten and electrocuted him, deprived him of food, water, and sleep, and subjected him to psychological pressure.

* Russian media are required by law to identify this perverse fiction by the FSB in this way.

Thanks to Anatrrra for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

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If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case aka the Network Case, and other recent cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and share the articles I have posted on these subjects.

• “Two Network Case Defendants Married in Prison,” 29 January 2020
• “Viktor Filinkov: ‘It’s As If You Disappear—Only the Pain Remains,’” 21 January 2019
• “David Graeber on the Network Case,” 20 January 2020
• “‘My Statement Has Been Recorded Accurately (February 1–3, 2020),” 28 December 2019
• “18 Years in Prison for Being Tortured by the FSB,” 26 December 2019
• “The Second Anniversary,” 20 October 2019
• “‘Hi, I’m Married,’” 14 August 2019
• “Ivan Davydov: The New Greatness Trial,” 12 July 2019
• “Guided Tour of a Torture Chamber,” 11 July 2019
• “They Are Who They Are,” 10 June 2019
• “Vocalese (The Network Trials),” 6 June 2019
• “Yana Teplitskaya: Can Torture Be Endured?” 3 June 2019
• “The Network Trials: Pinning the ‘Code’ on the Defendants,” 22 May 2019
• “My Generation,” 6 May 2019
• “Lie Still, Bitch!” 26 April 2019
• “Crossing Jordan: Day Three of the Network Trial,” 17 April 2019
• “Network Trial Begins in Petersburg,”  9 April 2019
• “FSB May Haved Used Neo-Nazi Provocateur to Frame Network Suspects,” 1 February 2019
• “Jenya Kulakova: A New Year of Sorts,” 18 January 2019
• “No Amnesty for ‘Terrorists,’” 15 January 2019
• “Relentless Repression in Russia: Why Londoners Are Demonstrating on January 19,” 14 January 2019
• “Solo,” 12 January 2019
• “Convoyed,” 31 October 2018
• “How the FSB Tortures Detainees: Stories of the Victims,” 28 October 2018
• “No Justice, No Peace: Petersburg’s Kangaroo Courts Revisited,” 21 October 2018
• “Shakursky and Pchelintsev Indicted for Organizing ‘Terrorist Community,’” 11 September 2018
• “Arman Sagynbayev: I Was Tortured by the FSB,” 8 September 2018
• “Yana Teplitskaya: Wonderland,” 6 September 2018
• “Network: Parents versus the FSB,” 2 August 2018
• “Is Maxim Shulgin an ‘Extremist’?” 26 July 2018
• “Moscow City Court Affirms Anna Pavlikova’s Remand in Custody,” 26 July 2018
• “Is Lydia Bainova an ‘Extremist’?” 24 July 2018
• “Anna Pavlikova: Enemy of the Putinist State?” 22 July 2018
• “A Funny Thing Happened in Pryamukhino,” 20 July 2018
• “Two More Suspects Detained in Network Case,” 6 July 2018
• “Petersburg Court Bailiffs Attack Reporter at Network Case Hearing,” 20 June 2018
• “Anna Tereshkina: At the Court Hearing,” 20 June 2018
• “Nikolai Boyarshinov: I Hope One Day We Can Say the FSB Has Been Banned,” 12 June 2018
• “Lemmy Kilmister vs. Vladimir Putin,” 19 May 2018
• “Brazil,” 18 May 2018
• “This Is What Antifascism Looks Like,” 13 May 2018
• “May Day in Petersburg: ‘Your Torture Won’t Kill Our Ideas,’” 2 May 2018
• “Riot Cops Raid Punk Rock in Barnaul: ‘Freaks, Not Patriots,” 29 April 2018
• “Hug Your Son and We’ll Open Fire,” 27 April 2018
• “Denis Lebedev’s Suicide Note,” 26 April 2018
• “‘Are You a Bitch Yet?’ FSB Makes New Threats to Framed and Tortured Antifascist Viktor Filinkov,” 26 April 2018
• “Suicide Invoice,” 25 April 2018
• “Zoya Svetova: Interview with Petersburg Public Monitoring Commission Members Yana Teplitskaya and Yekaterina Kosarevskaya,” 23 April 2018
• “TV Party Tonight!” 21 April 2018
• “Valery Pshenichny: Tortured, Then Murdered,” 19 April 2018
• “They Are Not Terrorists! The Terrorists at the FSB Torture People,” 16 April 2018
• “FSB and NTV Pressure Mother of Man Accused in ‘Terrorist’ Frame-Up,” 12 April 2018
• “A New Face in Hell: Yuli Boyarshinov,” 12 April 2018
• “Wife of Tortured Antifascist Seeks Asylum in Finland,” 11 April 2018
• “The FSB’s Tall Tales,” 10 April 2018
• “Families of Penza-Petersburg Terrorists Form Committee,” 9 April 2018
• “Extremism Inside Out,” 30 March 2018
• “Search and Intimidate,” 29 March 2018
• “Solidarity? (The Case of the Penza and Petersburg Antifascists),” 24 March 2018
• “Anna Tereshkina: At Viktor Filinkov’s Remand Extension Hearing,” 23 March 2018
• “Ping, Ping, Ping: The Remand Extension Hearing of the Penza ‘Terrorists,’” 20 March 2018
• “Tortured Petersburg Antifascist Viktor Filinkov Transferred to Remand Prison in Leningrad Region,” 17 March 2018
• “Svyatoslav Rechkalov: ‘They Proceeded to Pull Down My Trousers, Threatening to Shock Me in the Groin,’” 15 March 2018
• “They Jump on Anything That Moves, Part 3: The Case of the New Greatness Movement,” 15 March 2018
• “The Horrorshow Continues: Svyatoslav Rechkalov Tortured in Moscow,” 15 March 2018
• “The Rowdies Have to Be Apprehended Legally, So We Can Have a Celebration in the City on March 18, not Bedlam,” 15 March 2018
• “Ilya Kapustin: ‘When the Stamp Thudded in My Passport, It Was Like a Huge Weight Had Been Lifted from My Shoulders,’” 13 March 2018
• “Your Husband Safely Made the Flight to Minsk after We Abducted Him in Petersburg,” 2 March 2018
• “‘FSB Officers Always Get Their Way!’” 28 February 2018
• ‘The Case of the Anarchists: Disappearances, Torture, Frame-Up (11 AM, February 15, 2018, Moscow),” 14 February 2018
• “The Strange Investigation of a Strange Subway Attack,” 12 February 2018
• “Arrested Penza Antifascists Talk about Torture in Remand Prison,” 10 February 2018
• “Solidarity with Persecuted Russian Antifascists and Anarchists in NYC and Minneapolis,” 7 February 2018
• “Ilya Kapustin: ‘They Said They Could Break My Legs and Dump Me in the Woods,’” 31 January 2018
• “The Penza ‘Terrorism’ Case,” 30 January 2018
• “Breaking Bad with the FSB,” 29 January 2018
• “How ‘Stability’ Has Really Been Achieved in Russia,” 29 January 2018