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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Three Ukrainian teenagers face possible life sentences in latest Russian show trial

03.12.2024   
Halya Coynash
The three were arrested in occupied Melitopol almost a year ago and Russia’s behaviour to date gives no grounds for hoping that their age would protect them from being tortured for ‘confessions’

One of the unnamed lads from occupied Melitopol

One of the unnamed lads from occupied Melitopol

Three Ukrainian teenagers from occupied Melitopol are on ‘trial’ at Russia’s notorious Southern District Military Court facing ‘terrorism’ charges.  Terrifyingly little is known about the three young Ukrainians, who could be facing life sentences, with even their names concealed. Such secrecy is especially chilling given that the three have been held in Russian captivity since December 2023, probably without independent lawyers and more than likely subjected to torture and other forms of duress.

Russian occupation police reported on 21 December 2023 that, together with the FSB, they had arrested three “underage saboteurs, planning terrorist attacks” on occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia oblast.

It was claimed that the three were members of a sabotage group called ‘Black Sabotage’ and that they had, on instructions from the Ukrainian ‘sixers’, received Russian passports back in 2022.  They had, supposedly, adopted an active pro-Russian position, while passing on intelligence information about Russian military personal and the Russian-installed leadership to Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU].  The report asserted that they had “organized several terrorist attacks” involving attempts on the life of so-called officials, i.e. those Russians or local collaborators installed by the invading state.  In December 2022, they had also purportedly passed on to Ukraine’s Armed Forces the coordinates of a restaurant and hotel complex which was targeted in a missile strike.  This had, it was claimed, left three people injured, with two not surviving.

A video was produced at the time, with a young man (with face obscured) asked what he had done and saying that he had been instructed to look for military technology and pass on information about it.  A later video shows two lads, and has one of them ‘admitting’ to placing explosives.  Such videoed ‘confessions’ or ‘testimony’ are a standard element in all such ‘cases’, with the overwhelming majority of former political prisoners, released POWs, etc. confirming that they were extracted through torture.   Obozrevatel spoke with an SBU official who dismissed the Russian claims, saying that it was unthinkable that the Security Servic

A video was produced at the time, with a young man (with face obscured) asked what he had done and saying that he had been instructed to look for military technology and pass on information about it.  A later video shows two lads, with one of them ‘admitting’ to placing explosives.  Such videoed ‘confessions’ or ‘testimony’ are a standard element in all such ‘cases’, with the overwhelming majority of former political prisoners, released POWs, etc. confirming that they were extracted through torture.  Doubts are also aroused by the supposed stash of explosives found, with these most unconvincingly shown spread out on a Ukrainian flag.

Obozrevatel spoke with an SBU official who dismissed the Russian claims, saying that it was unthinkable that the Security Service would recruit and therefore risk the lives of young adolescents.

The Memorial Society reported on 1 December that at least 13 ‘cases’ involving Ukrainians had been passed to the Southern District Military Court in November.  This court has been actively handing down huge sentences against Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners since 2014, with the numbers increasing massively since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s prosecution is claiming that, from February 2022 through March 2023, the three underage Ukrainians, “acting in the interests of the SBU, as supporters of pro-Ukrainian nationalist ideology, and feeling hatred to the current Russian authorities, created a terrorist organization.”  They purportedly placed an explosive device near railway tracks, however this did not cause an explosion.  In June 2023, they supposedly followed a local deputy and FSB officer, planning to block up their vehicles.

It seems likely that the case is that passed to the court on 11 November 2024, under presiding ‘judge’ Denis Vitalievich Vovchenko.  Here too names are concealed, but the three are all accused of up to 12 charges of ‘a terrorist act’, under Article 205 § 3 of Russia’s criminal code; ‘organizing and participating in a terrorist organization’ (Article 205.4); and charges over possession, etc. of explosives (Article 222.1).   The charges could carry from 15-20 years, or up to life imprisonment. 

Open proceedings at this court have made it clear that, at least in the case of Ukrainian political prisoners, prisoners of war or civilian hostages, justice should not be expected.  Nor, when even the names of the victims, and their ages, are concealed, is there any realistic way of scrutinizing the supposed ‘trial’ now underway.

See also:

Russia secretly buries the bodies of the Ukrainian teenagers it murdered in occupied Berdiansk

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