Huge sentences in Russian-occupied Crimea for alleged attempt to kill notorious ‘Crimean SMERSH’ anti-Ukrainian vigilante

A Crimean occupation ‘court’ has sentenced two Ukrainians from Feodosia to 16- and 10-year terms of imprisonment for a supposed attempt on the life of Aleksandr Talipov, a toxic individual working closely with the Russian enforcement bodies in hunting down those with pro-Ukrainian and anti-war views.  Like all of Russia’s ‘Crimean saboteur’ cases, there are strong grounds for doubting that this was ‘a trial’ in anything but name, not least the template nature of several parts of the indictment.

Russia’s Investigative Committee reported the sentences on 31 October 2024, with this effectively the first time anything was heard about the ‘trial’ of the two men, identified by the Russian publication Kommersant as Roman Melnychuk and Vladyslav Hromovy.  The Investigative Committee identified them as residents of Feodosia, Ukrainian citizens and as supposed accomplices of Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU].  The occupation ‘Feodosia municipal court’ had found the two men guilty “of an attempt to kill a person in connection with the latter carrying out his civic duty” as well as other related crimes.  The attack was claimed to have been carried out in a publicly dangerous manner, by a group of people acting by prior conspiracy”.  Russia has a problem with such cases since it does not want to present such attacks, whether real or imaginary, as prompted by patriotism and the wish to defend Ukraine against the aggressor state.  Defendants are, therefore, usually accused of having carried out or planned to carry out the ‘crime’ for financial gain, with Melnychuk claimed to have been offered a million roubles.  They are, however, also alleged, rather confusingly, to have been motivated by ‘political enmity’.

The prosecution asserted that the SBU had, from December 2022 through June 2023 used Messenger to persuade “the Feodosia” resident to work with them.  The SBU had supposedly ‘tested him’ by getting him to set fire to any car with the Russian ‘Z’ symbol for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with this purportedly having been carried out during the night of 22 February 2023.   The claim appears to have been that the SBU originally recruited Melnychuk who then recruited his friend, Vladyslav Hromovy in order to kill Talipov whom the Investigative Committee choses to call a “public figure” who provided assistance to the so-called ‘special military operation’, Russia’s euphemistic term for its war of aggression against Ukraine.  A first attempt in June 2023 purportedly failed because the remote control for the explosive device did not work.  A second attempt took place on 12 July 2023, seemingly in a courtyard linked with Talipov.  The latter was unhurt, but three women walking nearby received injuries.

The defendants were supposedly identified and detained through the efforts of the Russian FSB and ‘police’.  It was claimed that during their searches, they uncovered “weapons; items used to created explosive devices; explosive substances; a remote control; electronic memory devices and mobile telephones containing correspondence with the men’s “SBU fixers”.  It should be said that grandiose claims are invariably made about the supposed results of such ‘searches’, with these known to have been totally false in a number of cases.  It was presumably Melnychuk who was sentenced to 16 years, Hromovy – to 10 years, with both sentences in maximum-security prison colonies.

There does appear to have been an explosion in Talipov’s courtyard on 12 July 2023, with the arrest of Melnychuk, then described as 36 and “a key agent of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence [HUR] in Crimea” reported by a pro-Russian Telegram channel on 23 August 2023.  Nothing was mentioned then of Hromovy, and the list of ‘crimes’ allegedly carried out by Melnychuk, as well as of those he might have also committed, suspiciously long.

Russia has been using such ‘saboteur’ charges against Ukrainians since soon after its invasion and annexation of Crimea.  In those cases we do know about, there is ample evidence that the charges were fabricated and any ‘confessions’ obtained through torture.  There seem no grounds for believing that the sentences now being churned out are any different. 

On 2 November, it was learned that another Crimean occupation ‘court’, this time in Dzhankoi, had sentenced 62-year-old Vyacheslav Piskunov to 14 years’ maximum-security imprisonment and imposed a huge 600 thousand rouble fine. Piskunov was accused of a supposed attempt to kill a traitor, turned Russian soldier in occupied Crimea. 

Talipov’s supposed ‘civic duty’

Russia’s so-called ‘trials’ of Ukrainians on such charges, and the methods used to obtain ‘confessions’, make it impossible to assess any specific case.

It is worth noting, however, that the Investigative Committee’s report on 31 October was seriously misleading with respect to the target of the alleged attack.  Aleksandr Talipov is a notorious pro-Russian collaborator who works very closely with Russia’s occupation enforcement bodies to hunt down anybody with a pro-Ukrainian or otherwise ‘dissident’ position in occupied Crimea.  His ‘Crimean SMERSH’ Telegram channel posts videos on a virtually daily basis showing his and the enforcement bodies’ prowess in hunting down Ukrainians, then terrorising or torturing them into ‘expressing repentance’ on video.   Moscow is now reviving the Soviet ‘SMERSH’ in all parts of occupied Ukraine, and there is nothing to suggest that Talipov’s ‘Crimean SMERSH’ is his individual expression of ‘civic duty’.