Azat Miftakhov: “It’s Like They’re Telling Us, It’s No Trouble for Us to Put Anyone Away”

Azat Miftakhov in court. Photo: OVD Info

Anarchist and mathematician Azat Miftakhov has been sentenced to four years in a maximum security facility on criminal charges of “condoning terrorism.” The young man will spend the first two and a half years of his sentence in a closed prison. Miftakhov was detained in September 2023 as he was leaving the penal colony from which he had been released after completing his sentence on charges related to the breaking of a window at a United Russia party office. The next day he was remanded in custody in a pretrial detention center. According to the security forces, while watching TV with other inmates Miftakhov had spoken approvingly of the actions of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who bombed the FSB’s Arkhangelsk offices [in 2018].

Why do I need to know this? Miftakhov’s wife, Yelena Gorban, argues that this criminal case was launched by members of the security forces who wanted to “extend Azat’s sentence for his past political activity.” In her statement to the court, she said that her husband was aware of the dangers of wiretapping in the penal colony, and so he had avoided discussing political topics in the company of inmates. “The conspicuousness and brazenness with which they fake evidence doesn’t embarrass them. It even plays into their hands. It’s like they’re telling us, ‘It’s no trouble for us to put anyone away,'” the anarchist himself said in [his closing statement at the trial].

Source: It’s Been That Kind of Week newsletter (OVD Info), 30 March 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

A video and audio recording of Azat Miftakhov’s closing statement at his trial and his sentencing, 28 March 2024, Yekaterinburg. Source: FreeAzat (Telegram), 31 March 2024

During the years I was imprisoned on the charges in previous criminal case, I failed to fall head over heels in love with the state, and now I again find myself in the dock. I am now on trial for what the security forces have deigned to call “condoning terrorism” by faking the evidence, as they did five years ago. The conspicuousness and brazenness with which they fake evidence doesn’t embarrass them. It even plays into their hands. It’s like they’re telling us, “It’s no trouble for us to put anyone away.”

We see the same brazenness in the numerous incidents of barbarous torture perpetrated by the regime’s guardians, the FSB. These guardians don’t care that their shameful deeds are made public. On the contrary, these deeds are flaunted as a source of pride. In this way, the state shows its terrorist nature, as anarchists pointed out before the previous presidential election by taking to the streets with the slogan “The FSB are the main terrorists.”

What we were saying back then has now become obvious not only in our country but all over the world. We how see how the [Russian] state’s entire foreign and domestic policy has become a conveyor belt of murder and intimidation. While fake witnesses attempt to prove the charges that I “condoned terrorism,” national TV channels broadcast calls for the mass murder of people who disagree with state policy. We see that the state, while paying lip service to combating terrorism, in fact seeks to maintain its monopoly on terror.

No matter how the Chekists try to intimidate civil society, we see even in these dark times people who find the courage to resist the terror that has spilled over the state’s borders. Risking their freedom and their lives, their actions awaken our society’s conscience, whose lack we now feel so acutely, and their steadfastness to the bitter end stands as an example for us all.

One such example for me was my friend and comrade Dmitry Petrov (aka Dima the Ecologist), who died defending Bakhmut from soldiers who had become tools of imperialism. I knew him as a fiery anarchist who, amidst a dictatorship, did everything he could to lead us to a society based on the principles of mutual aid and direct democracy.

As a graduate of the history program at Moscow State University and a PhD in history, he was well versed in the structure of society and was able to argue his position well, something I had always lacked. And yet he was not limited to theorizing but was also heavily involved in organizing the guerrilla movement, which did not escape the FSB’s notice. Because of this, he was forced to continue his work as an anarchist in Ukraine.

When the grim events of the last two years kicked off, he could not stay on the sidelines. An enterprising comrade, he sought to create an association of libertarian-minded people who would fight for the freedom of the peoples of Ukraine and Russia. Unfortunately, no war is without casualties, and Dima was one of them. It would be unjustifiably selfish of me to admire the selflessness of strangers alone and not to acknowledge the sacrifice of those who are personally dear to me. I am well aware of this, despite my regret that all my fellowship with him is now irrevocably a thing of the past.

And yet I find it hard to accept this loss. Knowing that he was one of the best of us, and wanting to do my best to ensure his sacrifice was not in vain, I have to recognize that my contribution will be insignificant compared to what he was capable of.

What I’ve just said was perhaps unexpected for some people. I cannot rule out that some of my supporters could be disappointed, as I find it difficult, to my own regret, to speak out publicly. Perhaps someone will disagree with my beliefs, which are at odds with pacifism.

Striving to be rational about everything, however, I reject a belief in things whose existence has not been proven. Among other things, I do not believe in the world’s justice. I do not believe that all evil will be punished as a matter of course. That’s why I support vigorously resisting evil and fighting for a better world for all of us.

But even if some of my supporters do not share all of my beliefs, I am still grateful for all of their help.

I am grateful to everyone who has written me letters full of warmth and good wishes. Even amidst the desolation of the penal colony, I received stacks of them almost every week. I am certain that such great attention to me was borne in mind by the people who set out to make me submissive. I find it quite pleasant and touching that people share a part of their lives with me, whether the experiences are joyful or sad. Every letter is very dear to my heart, and I read every single one of them.

Many thanks to all those who have supported me financially. Thanks to them I have never lacked anything during all the years of my imprisonment. There have been times when I have run out of money to support me, but as soon as I put out a call for help, within a few days people who cared about me brought my budget back to a comfortable level. This is very pleasant and impossible to forget. Special thanks to Vladimir Akimenkov, who for more than ten years has been organizing fundraisers to support political prisoners, including me.

I am extremely grateful to the activists in the FreeAzat and Solidarité FreeAzat collectives, who have organized campaigns and events in solidarity with me on a scale which boggles my mind. Your recent “1001 Letters” campaign was one of them. After reading all those letters, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that people in dozens of different countries are concerned about me. Thank you very much to everyone who was involved in this campaign, thus showing me how much you support me.

I am extremely grateful to mathematicians all over the world, and specifically to the Azat Miftakhov Committee, for supporting me on behalf of the mathematical community. I am very touched that people to whom I look up, whose scholarly prowess I dream of achieving someday, know about me and voice their solidarity.

Thank you very much to everyone who has spoken publicly about me. And special thanks to Mikhail Lobanov, who was forced to emigrate to France for vigorously supporting me. But even there, despite all the difficulties of exile, his solidarity with me has been as strong as ever.

Many thanks to the Russian activists, including those who don’t belong to collectives mentioned above, who have risked their comfort by showing solidarity with me while living under a dictatorship. I am very grateful to all who came to support me with their presence by attending the trial. Some of you traveled hundreds of kilometers for this purpose, and some of you did it more than once and more than twice. I was once again pleasantly surprised by such a huge attention to me.

Many thanks to all the honest members of the press who, through their work, have been helping the public to follow my trial.

I thank my defense counsel, Svetlana Sidorkina, for her dedication in defending me at my trials. I never cease to admire her professionalism and I am convinced that I am very lucky to have her. Finally, I would like to thank Lena, my main support in my tribulations. She has helped me through her dedication to overcoming all the difficulties of my imprisonment. On top of that, I am blessed to be in love with her.

As I finish my acknowledgements, I am left with the feeling that someone may have been overlooked. This is a consequence of the tremendous, steady support I have received since the moment of my arrest. I am pleased to see I am not the only one who has been the object of your support—that, despite the dark events of recent years, your solidarity knows no territorial boundaries. This is what gives me hope for a bright future for all of us.

Source: “Azat Miftakhov’s Closing Statement in Court: Yekaterinburg, 28 March 2024,” Telegra.ph. The emphasis is in the original. Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to the Fabulous AM for the heads-up.

Network Case Defendant Maxim Ivankin Claims He Was Tortured into Memorizing Meduza’s Smear and Repeating It as a “Confession”

Maxim Ivankin in court. Still from a video by 7×7. Image courtesy of Novaya Gazeta

“They put me on a spreader and beat me”: man convicted in Network case confesses to murder after he is subjected to “course of treatment”
Yan Shenkman
Novaya Gazeta
October 5, 2021

Maxim Ivankin, convicted in the Network case, has turned up at Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Ryazan. During the three weeks when he was officially in transit from Chuvashia to Ryazan, and not accessible to his lawyers, he signed a confession in the so-called Ryazan case, admitting his complicity in the murders of Artyom Dorofeyev and Katya Levchenko. Only a few days later, however, he complained that he had been subjected to physical coercion and retracted his testimony.

Russian Investigative Committee investigators have long been attempting to connect the Ryazan case with the Network case. Here are several facts supporting this hypothesis:

1. The investigation was initially based on the account given by Alexei Poltavets to the news website Meduza. Poltavets claimed that he and Ivankin committed the murders in the spring of 2017. There was no significant corroboration of Poltavets’s account before Ivankin confessed, nor did the authorities particularly look for such evidence. Poltavets himself is currently in hiding in Ukraine. He has not been questioned by the Russian authorities, and so his account is inadmissible in court. However, the investigation did not consider any other explanations for the murders. It is not surprising, then, that Ivankin’s confession is a slightly modified variation on Poltavets’s monologue.

2. In the spring and summer of this year, Investigative Committee investigator A.M. Kosenko made the rounds of the penal colonies where the men convicted in the Network case are serving their sentences. According to some of them, he demanded that they bear false witness against Ivankin. Or, to put it more delicately, Kosenko was gathering evidence against Ivankin. After refusing to speak without a lawyer present, some of the convicted men (for example, Mikhail Kulkov and Ilya Shakursky) were sent to punitive detention cells. For completely other reasons, of course.

3. Ivankin was threatened with violence if he did not cooperate with the investigation, and these threats were also communicated to his wife, Anna.

The day after Ivankin was dispatched to Ryazan, he found himself in Nizhny Novgorod and, a bit later, in Vladimir. If you look on the map you’ll see that neither Nizhny nor Vladimir are on the way from Chuvashia to Ryazan. There is a direct road between them, which lies much farther to the south than the route by which Ivankin was transported.

Judging by the stories of convicts, the penal colonies in Vladimir, in particular, the hospital at Penal Colony No. 3 (aka Motorka), have a reputation as places where where prisoners are taken to be coerced and beaten into testifying. The most famous example is the case of Gor Hovakimyan, who died after being tortured in the hospital at Penal Colony No. 3. Ivankin was taken to this hospital. “I still do not know what my diagnosis is,” he said in a statement to his lawyers.

Vladimir Osechkin, the founder of the project Gulagu.net, recently reported that his organization had more than 1,000 Federal Penitentiary Service videos corroborating that torture takes place in Russian penal colonies, including footage from the Vladimir region.

And now the most important part. Lawyers Svetlana Sidorkina and Konstantin Kartashov visited Ivankin in the Ryazan pre-trial detention center on October 4 and 5. They have given Novaya Gazeta a copy of their official, on-the-record conversation with Ivankin, from which we have excerpted the following passages:

Question: Were you subjected to psychological and physical pressure in the hospital? If yes, what were the circumstances?

Answer: Yes, I was. Immediately, when I was brought to the hospital, I was met by the “reds” (activists from among the inmates)… The inmates began beating me in the back of the head and the kidneys… I will be able to identify the activists… When I was asked to sign a statement, I was put on a spreader for refusing to sign, and I was beaten in this position.

This treatment lasted about nine days. It is difficult to say more precisely: Ivankin himself has doubts. Apparently, he lost track of time.

I told them I was not involved in the murders of Dorofeyev and Levchenko… The field officers said that they were not satisfied with my position, and demanded that I rewrite the handwritten confession written by them, which I was forced to rewrite under the supervision of several activists. The events described in the confession matched the account given by journalists in the media (“Meduza”).

The activists forced me to learn the contents of the confession by heart. Until I had repeated it to them verbatim, I was not allowed to sleep… Investigator Kosenko arrived and wrote up a report that he had received the confession…

I was forced, in writing, to waive the services of my private legal counsel and my right to have my relatives notified… I made the confession out of fear for my life and safety…

My testimony was verified at the crime scene. The whole thing was a farce, because I don’t know what happened. In all the documents I indicated that I had not been coerced [into confessing], but I had to say that, out of fear for my life.

And here is the result: an indictment order. Previously, we should recall, Ivankin was officially a witness in the Ryazan case. If he was treated this way as a witness, what awaits him as an indicted man?

Under Article 105.2 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code (premeditated murder and conspiracy to murder) Ivankin faces a possible life sentence.

If Russia had the death penalty, Ivankin would be sentenced to death.

I have before me a document from the Federal Penitentiary Service in which what happened to Ivankin is called a “course of treatment.” “Maxim now shudders when he hears the word ‘Vladimir,'” says his lawyer Konstantin Kartashov. Nevertheless, he retracted his confession. But he did say, “If the publicity subsides, I’m finished.”

Translated by the Russian Reader

Court Extends Azat Miftakhov’s Term in Custody Until April

azat

“Russia needs scientists, not political prisoners. Free Azat Miftakhov!” A women picketing outside Moscow City Court on February 4, 2020. Photo courtesy of FreeAzat!

Moscow City Court Extends Mathematician Azat Miftakhov’s Term in Custody Until April 7, 2020
OVD Info
February 4, 2020

Moscow City Court has extended the term in custody of mathematician Azat Miftakhov, charged with disorderly conduct, as reported in Novaya Gazeta‘s live blog from the hearing.

Since Miftakhov has been in remand prison for a year, further extensions of his remand in custody had to be decided in the city court rather than in a municipal district court.

According to the Telegram channel Vestnik Buri Originals, Svetlana Sidorkina, Miftakhov’s defense attorney, reported that before court hearings her client was not delivered directly from the remand prison to the court by the Federal Penitentiary Service, but for unknown reasons was driven around town in a paddy wagon.

The defense asked the court either to transfer the mathematician to house arrest or release him on bail in the amount of 1,994,000 rubles [approx. 28,500 euros], but the court sided with the prosecution and extended Maftakhov’s term in custody till April 7.

Miftakhov, a graduate student in mathematics at Moscow State University and an anarchist, was arrested as part of an investigation of a case of group disorderly conduct, as punishable under Article 213.2 of the Russian Criminal Code. Police investigators allege that on January 30, 2018, Miftakhov, Andrei Yeikin, Yelena Gorban, Alexei Kobaidze, and Svyatoslav Rechkalov broke a window in a United Russia party office and threw a smoke grenade through it. Rechkalov and Kobaidze have fled Russia, and their case is now being investigated separately. In December 2019, the Russian Interior Ministry reported that it had completed its investigation of the case of the broken window at the United Russia party office.

Miftakhov was detained on February 1, 2019. He would later tell his lawyer that he had been tortured with a screwdriver. For the next eleven days, his arrest was extended under various pretexts. OVD Info has written in detail about different aspects of Miftakhov’s arrest and published a timeline of developments in the broken window case.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Police Intimidating Azat Miftakhov’s Family into Testifying

azat Azat Miftakhov. Photo courtesy of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Police Pressuring Azat Miftakhov’s Family to Testify
OVD Info
June 14, 2019

During an interview at the Nizhnekamsk police department, police officers promised Moscow State University (MSU) graduate student Azat Miftakhov’s stepfather problems if he did not testify and submit Miftakhov’s younger sister, who is finishing ninth grade, to routine monitoring by the police, OVD Info has learned from the MSU Pressure Group.

Svetlana Sidorkina, Miftakhov’s defense counsel, corroborated the news. According to her, the police want Miftakhov’s family to testify. Sidorkina underscored that Miftakhov’s mother, stepfather, and sister have the right not to testify since they are close relatives.

Azat Miftakhov is a suspect in a criminal case involving a broken window at a United Russia party office.

According to the MSU Pressure Group, police officers visited the Miftakhov family home on June 6, telling them to come to the police station for an interview. As they were leaving, they hinted Miftakhov was guilty. Subsequently, police officers telephoned the Miftakhovs several times, demanding they report to the police station.

On June 10, during the interview, police officers showed Miftakhov’s stepfather a video in which his younger sister is seen pasting stickers in his defense. The police officers demanded that the girl stop supporting her brother overtly. Otherwise, she would have problems at school, and they would make a habit of detaining her, summon her for interviews, and put her on their routine monitoring list.

Miftakhov’s stepfather was asked by the police officers how long he had known his stepson, how often he visited Nizhnekamsk, and what people in Moscow the family members were in contact regarding the criminal case.

After the interview, a police officer telephoned Miftakhov’s mother, apologized for taking to her in a raised voice, and hinted at her son’s guilt. He demanded that she stop communicating with activists, and take her daughter in hand.

Miftakhov told Public Monitoring Commission member Yevgeny Yenikeyev about pressure on him in the remand prison where he has been jailed since his arrest. In late April, Miftakhov was taken to the investigation room, where two men wanted to have an “informal” chat with him. When Miftakhov turned them down, they threatened him. They said he would have problems at the remand prison and face a second set of criminal charges.

A graduate student in mechanics and mathematics at MSU and an anarchist, Miftakhov was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct (Russian Criminal Code Article 213 Part 2). The charges were filed due to the events during the early hours of January 31, 2018, when persons unknown broke a window at the United Russia party office in Moscow’s Khovrino District and threw a smoke bomb inside.

Police detained Miftakhov on February 1, 2019. Subsequently, Miftakhov told a lawyer he had been tortured with a screwdriver. Eleven other people were detained the same day, and several of them reported they were tortured, too. Over the next eleven days, Miftakhov’s time in police custody was extended under various pretexts.

[…]

Translated by the Russian Reader

Azat Miftakhov: Abducted for the Third Time in a Week

Yana Teplitskaya writes: “Today, Azat Miftakhov was abducted for the third time in a week. (That is, he was abducted once, but allegedly “released” two times.) Attorney Svetlana Sidorkina was informed that Azat had been released from the Temporary Detention Facility. But then it became clear no one had seen him since his release. Ultimately, it transpired that he had simply been taken to a police station. The court hearing at which Azat was either to be released or remanded in custody was scheduled for today.”

Photo and translation by the Russian Reader

Torture First, Ask Questions Later (The Case of Azat Miftakhov)

азат Azat Miftakhov. Courtesy of Autonomous Action

Detained Moscow State University Mechanics and Mathematics Grad Student Tells Lawyer Security Forces Beat Him
Mediazona
February 3, 2019

Defense lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina reported to Mediazona that Azat Miftakhov, a graduate student in the mechanics and mathematics department at Moscow State University, told her he was beaten by security forces officers after they detained him.

“In the office [at the Balashikha police station — Mediazona] where he was held, they demanded he confess and were upset he asked to call family members or a lawyer. As he told me, one of the officers pressed an object that appeared to be a screwdriver to his chest and said he would use it if [Miftakhov] did not do as they asked,” Sidorkina told us.

“Then he was beaten on the arms and face. As [Miftakhov] said, they kicked and punched him in the chest. But there were no visible injuries. Then [one of the security forces officers] wanted to stick the screwdriver in his anus. [Miftakhov] took the threat seriously, but [the officers] did nothing. Ultimately, [Miftakhov] did not tell them anything nor did he sign a confession,” said Sidorkina.

She noted that, aside from a bruise on Azat’s ear and a mark made by the screwdriver, there were no visible injuries on his body.

Miftakhov did not know what security agency the men who beat him represented.

Sidorkina added that Miftakhov was detained as part of an investigation into a violation of Russian Criminal Code Article 223.1 Part 1 (illegal manufacture of explosives).

According to Sidorkina, Miftakhov was detained on the morning of February 1. After his dwelling was searched, he was delivered to the Balashikha police station. In the evening, after he was interrogated by security services officers, he was taken to hospital, where he was treated for abrasions from the screwdriver and injected with a sedative. He was driven back to the police station, but held in the car until three in the morning.

Sidorkina suspects the security forces did not know how to charge the detained graduate student.

Ultimately, Miftakhov was placed in a room for people detained on administrative charges in the Balashikha police station’s other building, which houses its investigative department.

On the morning of February 2, however, he was taken back to the first building. According to Miftakhov, he was held in a office there for the entire day, but he was handcuffed. Around seven o’clock in the evening, he was driven back to the Balashikha police station’s investigative department, where the written record of his detention was read out to him.

At least eleven other people were detained as part of the explosives investigation. Except for Miftakhov, all of them have been released.

Mediazona has spoken with six of the former detainees. Daniil Galkin told us that, after the search, FSB officers tortured him with a taser and tried to force him into testifying against Miftakhov and doing an interview with a news crew from Channel One.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Moscow Anarchist Azat Miftakhov: Arrested, Tortured and Missing

azat Moscow anarchist Azat Miftakhov at the center of a selfie taken, apparently, by the Center “E” officers who tortured him. Screenshot courtesy of Jenya Kulakova

Jenya Kulakova
Facebook
February 2, 2019

For a day and a half, lawyers have been unable to see Azat Miftakhov, an anarchist and Moscow State University graduate student who was detained yesterday. Yesterday evening, Miftakhov was taken from the Balashikha police station as a defense counselor looked on and taken to parts unknown. Miftakhov was bruised and surrounded by eight cop. It has been twenty-four hours since he was last seen. No one knows his whereabouts, his condition, and the charges against him.

On the other hand, Ren TV and Rossiya 24 have broadcast photos and videos from the Miftakhov’s search and interrogation. In one of them, an investigator mocks Miftakhov, who is handcuffed, when he claims he is afraid of being tortured. The Center “E” officers take a selfie with their prisoner. (I was unable to find any other photo, so that’s why it illustrates this post.)

The folks who were detained along with Miftakhov, but released yesterday, report they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks. The torture was so bad that yesterday Miftakhov “didn’t look like a human being.” He attempted to slash his wrists to keep from being tortured again. Today, lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina heard an investigator in court talking to someone about it.

The authorities did not produce Miftakhov in court today for his own custody hearing.

Like a year ago in Petersburg, torture is happening practically in broad daylight, but we don’t know what to do. Yesterday, when I left a message on the Moscow police’s hotline, the operator almost laughed at me. Just as Putin claimed [at a recent meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights] that FSB officers don’t torture people in vehicles, she doubted what I was saying.

“He’s being tortured right in an Interior Ministry building? Right now? Give me a break,” she said to me.

A missing person report on Miftakhov has been filed, and lawyers have been trying since yesterday to get access to him. But what’s the point?

I hope this hell ends for him as soon as possible.

Here are a few links to articles [in Russian] about what has transpired about the searches and arrests in Moscow since yesterday.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Comrade to Comrade

1465990524-5252 Crimean political prisoners Oleg Sentsov and Alexander Kolchenko during their so-called trial by a Russian kangaroo court. Photo courtesy of Unian Information Agency

Alexander Kolchenko, Convicted in the Case of the “Crimean Terrorists,” Writes a Letter to Oleg Sentsov
Mediazona
May 22, 2018

Antifascist Alexander Kolchenko, convicted in the Case of the “Crimean Terrorists,” has written a letter to filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is in the ninth day of a hunger strike meant to force the Russian authorities to release all Ukrainian political prisoners from the country’s prisons. Mediazona was told about the letter by attorney Svetlana Sidorkina.

According to Sidorkina, Kolchenko was afraid the censor would not pass the letter on to Sentsov, so he gave her a detailed acount of its contents when she visited Kolchenko at Corrective Colony No. 6 in the town of Kopeysk.

“In the letter he wrote that, in his opinion, a hunger strike was an effective means of defense only in cases in which a country valued its reputation. Alexander believes that, in Oleg’s case, Russia could ignore his hunger strike, but not let him die by forcibly feeding and sending him off for a psychiatric examination. Sergei Magnitsky’s death changed nothing in Russia. Instead, the Dima Yaklovev Law was adopted. He did not try and dissuade Oleg, since he knows Oleg is stubborn and does not change his mind. He is quite concerned for his health, since he knows what the climate and living conditions are like in Labytnangi from prisoners he met when he and Oleg were in transit to the prisons where they would serve their sentences. Although Alexander doesn’t agree with Oleg’s method, he respects his stance on freeing Ukrainian political prisoners from Russian prisons and is ready to support Oleg if he needs to,” said Sidorkina.

Sidorkina tried to dissuade Kolchenko from a possible hunger strike by pointing to his health problems and the fact he is underweight. Because of this, he is on a special diet.

Aside from the letter to Sentsov, Kolchenko wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin demanding he intervene in the situation and release Sentsova. Kolchenko, however, was afraid the censor would also prevent the letter from reaching its addressee.

Kolchenko added he had no complaints about conditions in the penal colony. According to Sidorkin, he looked cheerful, but was quite worried about Sentsova. Sidorkina had wanted to show him articles about the Ukrainian filmmaker’s hunger strike, but penal colony staff stopped her from doing so.

In 2015, a court sentenced Kolchenko and Sentsov to ten years and twenty years, respectively, in maximum security penal colonies. According to police investigators, in 2014, Sentsov established a “terrorist community” (illegal under Article 205.4 Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code). Members of the alleged community supposedly set fire to the doors of the Russian Community of Crimea and the windows of a United Russia Party office. These actions were deemed terrorist attacks, punishable under Article 205 Part 2 Paragraph A of the Criminal Code.

In addition, police investigators insisted members of the alleged “terrorist community” were planning to blow up a monument to Lenin and the Eternal Flame, punishable under Article 30 Part 1 and Article 205 Part 2 Paragraph A. Sentsov was also charged with trafficking in arms and explosives as part of a group, punishable by Article 222 Part 3. Kolchenko was found guilty of involvement in the alleged terrorist community and planning terrorist attacks on the Crimean Peninsula. Both men have denied their guilt.

In the spring of 2016, Sentsov was transported to a penal colony in Yakutia, but in 2017 he was transferred to the White Bear Colony in Labytnangi. In the winter of 2017, the Ukrainian authorities announced they were prepared to exchange Russian prisoners for Sentsov and Kolchenko. On May 14 of this year, Sentsov announced he was going on an indefinite hunger strike to secure the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Dragnet (Yelena Gorban and Alexei Kobaidze)

Suspects in Vandalism Committed Outside of United Russia Office Sent to Temporary Detention Facility
OVD Info
February 14, 2018

Paddy wagon in which Gorban was taken away. Photo by Maxim Pashkov. Courtesy of OVD Info

Yelena Gorban and Alexei Kobaidze, suspects in the vandalism case (Russian Criminal Code Article 214) opened after a protest outside a United Russia party office on January 31, have been sent to Temporary Detention Facility No. 1 (Petrovka) in Moscow, as reported to OVD Info by their defense lawyers, Svetlana Sidorkina and Maxim Pashkov.

Gorban and Kobaidze have been jailed for 48 hours. On February 14, investigators plan to pursue their investigation, perhaps by confronting the detainees. According to the lawyers, Gorban has confessed to violating Article 214 Part 1 (vandalism) of the Criminal Code, while Kobaidze has refused to testify, invoking his right not to incriminate himself under Article 51 of the Russian Constitution.

Police arrived at Gorban’s home early in the morning. They searched the flat she shares with her parents, confiscated all electronic devices, and took the young woman to the Investigation Office of the Interior Ministry’s Moscow Directorate. Gorban has problems with her eyesight, but was not allowed to take contact lenses or eyeglases with here. The activist was delivered to the Investigation Office and interrogated as a witness. Her attorney, Svetlana Sidorkina, was not allowed to see her client for four hours. When Sidorkina was finally allowed to see Gorban, she had had decided to confess her guilt and testify.

The police came for Kobaidze in the evening. He refused to open the door, and the police were unable to enter his flat for a long time. Kobaidze’s neighbor Alexei Markov was apprehended by police and taken to the Novogireevo precinct, because he had returned home and refused to opened the door to the flat with his own key. He was then taken to the police station on the premise that he could be inebriated. After testing Markov, the police took him back to the flat and, after showing him a search warrant, opened the door with his key. After the search, Kobaidze was also taken to the Interior Ministry’s Investigation Department and interrogated as a suspect.

During the interrogations, police officers questioned Gorban and Kobaidze about an unauthorized march by Moscow anarchists on Myasnitskaya Street to protest the torture of anarchists and antifascists in Penza and Petersburg (see below).

Translated by the Russian Reader

••••••••••

I have previously posted the following translations of popular press articles on the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and the FSB-led investigation of the April 2017 bombing in the Petersburg subway, which upon close examination seem eerily like carbon copies of each other.

Dmitry Buchenkov, Last Bolotnaya Square Defendant, Flees Russia

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Last Bolotnaya Square Defendant Flees Russia
RBC
November 9, 2017

In an interview with Current Time TV, Bolotnaya Square defendant Dmitry Buchenkov said he has left Russia for a European Union country.

He said he has applied for political asylum in this country. Buchenkov failed to say exactly where he had gone.

“I’m calm about the fact I won’t be returning to the motherland soon. I won’t say leaving was easy. Psychologically, of course, I didn’t want to leave,” he noted. “The regime and the entire justice system forced me to take this step.”

He added he was currently not in touch with relatives.

When asked how he managed to cross the Russian border, the Bolotnaya Square defendant said he was “neither the first nor the last person to do it in such circumstances.”

According to Buchenkov, the Bolotnaya Square Case was “political” from the onset. He said that, after he was put under house arrest, “for six months [he] observed how the case was unfolding personally for [him]” and was convinced a guilty verdict lay in store. He said he was transferred from a pretrial detention facility to house arrest during a “brief thaw.” He was not outfitted with an electronic tracking bracelet, because the Naro-Fominsky division of the Federal Penitentiary Service had run out of them.

“I think the police investigators have long known they nabbed the wrong guy. But it was too late for them to back out,” said Buchenkov.

On the morning of November 9, Buchenkov did not show up to the Zamoskvorechye District Court for the latest hearing in his case, in which he stood accused of involvement in rioting. The Federal Penitentiary Service has accused him of fleeing, writes Current Time. Federal Penitentiary Service spokeswoman Natalya Bakharina said the defendant had “absconded,” since he was not to be found in his flat. She noted another family had been living there since November 5, and they were given keys to the flat in late October.

Buchenkov’s attorney Ilya Novikov wrote that he would refrain from commenting for the time being. In turn, Buchenkov’s other attorney, Svetlana Sidorkina, told RBC she did not know about her client’s departure from Russia.

“I don’t know about it. I do know he did not come to today’s hearing, during which the matter of whether to continue the forensic investigation or not was to have been ajudicated,” said Sidorkina.

According to her, the court decided to postpone the hearing since Buchenkov was not in attendance.

In April, at a hearing in the Zamoskvorechye District Court, Buchenkov declared himself not guilty of involvement in rioting and fighting with policemen. He was accused of violence against six Interiory Ministry officers and causing damage in the amount of 73,800 rubles to a commercial firm that set up porta-potties near Bolotnaya Square in Moscow.

Buchenkov, a 38-year-old anarchist and history teacher, was detained and remanded to custody in December 2015, thus becoming the thirty-fourth defendant in the Bolotnaya Square Case. Later, the Moscow City Court released him from custody and put him under house arrest. Buchenkov’s lawyers insisted the activist was not in Moscow during the events of May 6, 2012. The claim was corroborated by Buchenkov’s relatives in Nizhny Novgorod.

According to the defense, the police investigators who, allegedly, identified Buchenkov on video recordings of the May 6, 2012, protest rally mixed him up with another person. The defense lawyers sought to enter higher resolution photographs into evidence, but police investigators refused to take them into account.

Translated by the Russian Reader