Two Ukrainians have received 10- and 9.5-year sentences in Russia’s latest ‘Crimean saboteur’ show trial based solely on FSB claims to have ‘thwarted terrorist attacks’ and ‘confessions’ almost certainly extracted through torture. Oleksandr Lytvynenko (b. 1986) and Kostiantyn Yevmenenko (b. 1971) were among six Ukrainians claimed to have been seized on 3 May 2022, and it remains unclear why they were ‘tried’ individually. Since appeals were lodged, and recently rejected, against both sentences, it seems unlikely that the ‘trials’ were separated because the men had agreed to admit to the charges.
On 3 May 2023, Russian propaganda media reported that the FSB in occupied Crimea had “uncovered’ what was claimed to be an agent network of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence [HUR]. Videos on which three of the men, including Lytvynenko, were shown apparently corroborating the FSB story, were also shown. There was nothing to suggest that the men had any access to lawyers, or contact with their families, and there is ample evidence that essentially all such ‘confessions’ are obtained through torture, threats and other forms of duress.
The FSB claimed to have thwarted plans by this purported network to assassinate the Russian-installed ‘head of Crimea’ Sergei Aksyonov, the ‘speaker of the Crimean parliament’ Vladimir Konstantinov and the Russian-installed ‘mayor of Yalta’ Yanina Pavlenko, “as well as terrorist attacks on transport infrastructure facilities” in Crimea. Six men with dual Ukrainian and Russian citizenship were said to have been detained: Oleksandr Lytvynenko; Kostiantyn Yevmenenko Serhiy Kryvosheiin; Viktor Pidvalny; Serhiy Voinarovsky; and Ihor Zorin. Denys Petranov, mentioned only by his surname and referred to as a citizen of both Ukraine and Bulgaria, was claimed to have delivered the alleged explosive devices, concealed in hotplates to occupied Crimea. The FSB asserted that they had discovered five bombs, ready for use; electric detonators; radio-controlled mechanisms and trackers, with the explosives purportedly smuggled in from Bulgaria, via Turkey and Georgia. A Ukrainian national Marina Matushchak was also accused of having organized the smuggling of these hotplates.
The men were also claimed to have been planning to blow up parts of transport infrastructure, with the FSB mentioning the explosion on railway tracks on 23 February 2023. The latter is the only actual event that the Ukrainians in custody could have been involved in, with the rest of the charges linked with allegedly ‘thwarted’ plans.
Although the list of alleged members of the ‘terrorist plot’ has grown, this was essentially the story repeated by the Russian state-controlled TASS on 20 June 2024, in reporting the sentences passed against Lytvynenko and Yevmenenko. TASS referred to them both as “agents of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence” and said that the sentences were for planning sabotage in Crimea and assassination attempts on “high-ranking officials”. This was purportedly on the instructions of Pidvalny for HUR.
The ‘trial’ took place at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov which has been notorious since 2014 for its part in the persecution of Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners. Lytvenenko’s ‘trial’ began on 17 April before presiding ‘judge’ Pavel Yurievich Gubarev; Yevmenenko’s on 18 April (presiding ‘judge’ Oleg Dmitrievich Terentyev.). Both TASS and Interfax repeat the same sentence against Yevmenenko, purportedly of ten years in a prison, the worst of Russia’s penal institutions. This may, in fact, have been an FSB press service typo as Lytvynenko faced essentially the same charges, and was sentenced to nine and a half years’ imprisonment in a maximum-security (‘harsh-regime’) prison colony with the first two years in a prison. Both men were also fined a steep 500 thousand roubles. Russia used the fact that it has made it impossible to work, receive health care, own property, etc. on occupied Ukrainian territory without Russian citizenship to then convict both men of ‘state treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code. The other charges were of taking part in a ‘terrorist organization’ (Article 205.4 § 2); possession of explosive devices (Article 222 § 1Art) and of one count in Lytvynenko’s case, and two in Yevmenenko’s of planning a terrorist attack by a group of people (Article 205.4 § 2 and Article 30 § 1).
The reports in May 2023 closely followed claims in Moscow of a ‘thwarted plot’ to kill Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There was nothing to indicate when the men had been seized, and one of the people later included in this supposed ‘terrorist plot’, Ukrainian sportsman Kyrylo Barannyk has given harrowing details of the torture used against him, and the threats to beat and / or rape his mother if he did not ‘cooperate’.
