Russia sentences Ukrainian from Melitopol to 27 years for a cake for fighter pilots

Russia’s Southern District Military Court has passed a record 27-year sentence against Yehor Semionov, a Ukrainian originally from Melitopol.  He was accused of a supposed attempt to poison graduates of a Russian military aviation institute in October 2023 which trains pilots for many of the SU-30, SU-34 and SU-35 fighter planes deployed in bombing Ukrainian cities. Although information is scarce and impossible to verify, there are details of concern, not least the massive sentence, considering that nobody was hurt and the speed with which the Ukrainian was arrested.  Suspicion is also elicited by the fact that Semionov initially gave a full ‘confession’, which he later clearly retracted.  His lawyer also informed the court of new circumstances which, he alleged, proved his client’s innocence. 

While the photos of the allegedly poisoned cake are the same in all reports, there are slightly differing versions of what actually happened on 20 October 2023.  A reunion was scheduled for that evening to mark 20 years since the students of the Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots had graduated.  It is alleged that a courier delivered a large cake, as well as bottles of cognac and whisky, with the story being that these were delivered early, before the pilots had appeared, and were supposed to be from a former graduate, or graduates, who could not attend.  Most of the men seem to have been impressed and taken selfies with the cake, which had an aviation institute emblem on the top. Seemingly, however, a senior officer became suspicious and stopped the others from eating it (and, possibly, from drinking the bottles of alcohol). 

20 October 2023 was a Friday, and it is hard to imagine that the institute, graduates or even Russia’s FSB, could have received an analysis of its content by some time on Saturday, 21 October 2023, which is when Semionov was arrested at Stavropol airport, during the day, as he was trying to fly to Moscow.  The cake apparently had a high level of cordiamine (or coramine), medication once used to counter tranquiller overdoses and which can cause heart failure.

Unlike multiple other Russian ‘trials’ since 2022, Yehor Semenov was not abducted from occupied Melitopol, but seized in Russia where he had, seemingly, been living since 2015, earning a living installing home intercom systems.  He had taken Russian citizenship in 2022.

Semionov was seized during the day, on 21 October, less than 24 hours after the reunion, He was, seemingly, placed on the wanted list for suspected armed robbery, with this discrepancy scarcely explained by the need to obtain a proper toxicology report. 

Perhaps there really were grounds for targeting Semionov.  This would not, however, be the first time that the FSB looked around for a Ukrainian to blame when something had happened, and Semionov was detained at an airport, where the border guards would have seen his Ukrainian city of birth. 

The prosecution claimed that in February 2023, Semionov had decided to work with Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU] and “provide help in activities aimed against the security of the Russian Federation.”  During that same month, it is alleged, Semionov contacted the administrator of an Internet chat and expressed the wish to help Ukraine’s Armed Services.  It is further claimed that he made a video address in Ukraine, in which he read out a text agreeing to cooperate with Ukraine’s Security Service and Armed Forces, which he supposedly sent to the relevant messenger.

He supposedly received instructions to kill the graduate pilots, with these purportedly arriving some time “during the period from 25 September to 3 October 2023.

Semionov was supposed to have paced out the restaurant, with it not especially clear why he needed to know its layout, etc. if the plan was merely to poison the cake.   In announcing the sentence, the Southern District Military Court asserts that Semionov was supposed to make holes and use a syringe to inject poison into the beverage.  No attempt was made to explain how Semionov was supposed to have obtained the cordiomine, nor how a large dose of this was supposed to have gone unnoticed by those eating the cake or drinking the alcohol.

It was alleged at this stage that he had either fully, or partially, ‘confessed’.  This was almost certainly while held incommunicado by Russia’s FSB and being subjected to torture.   It is unclear when he gained a lawyer representing his interests, but the latter has insisted on his client’s innocence and applied for a review of the case, given new circumstances, apparently proving that Semionov was not involved.  It is not clear what that evidence was, however, it must have been substantial since the case was returned for ‘further investigation’.  The fact that it was, ultimately, ignored is no surprise since all such cases are effectively predetermined. 

Semionov was charged with ‘state treason’ [Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code) and an act of terrorism, under Article 205 §.  The  prosecutor had demanded a life sentence.  On 29 April 2025, ‘judge’ Valery Sergeevich Opanasenko passed a 27-year term of maximum-security imprisonment with the first five years in a prison, the worst of Russia’s penal institutions.  The sentence can still be appealed.