A Russian court has sentenced Artem Malyshev to 27 years’ imprisonment two and a half years after the then 38-year-old Ukrainian was abducted from near his work in occupied Melitopol. The sentence is disturbingly savage, especially given that the Russian ‘investigators’ have not identified any others involved in the supposed ‘terrorist organization’, within which Malyshev was claimed to have played a mostly auxiliary role.
Artem Malyshev (b. 24.11.1984) was abducted on 22 June 2023. Just five minutes before he was due to begin work, he had nipped out on his bike to a nearby chemist and simply vanished.
For some time, his family and friends had no idea what had happened to him, and reported his disappearance, asking anybody who knew anything to contact them. Even when it became clear that he had been taken prisoner, it was still around a year before there was any clarity as to what he was accused of, although Russia had added him to its notorious ‘list of terrorists and extremists’ within days of his abduction
it is unclear where he was held for around half a year before being moved to a prison in occupied Mariupol, with such periods where a person is held incommunicado, without any official status, typically used to extract false ‘confessions’ through torture. The vast majority of these ‘prosecutions’, including that of Malyshev, are far more akin to enforced disappearances, than to ‘arrests’. As well as violating international law both through its application of Russian legislation on occupied territory, and in its forced deportation of Ukrainian citizens to Russian territory, Russia is also quite simply depriving Ukrainian citizens of anything remotely resembling a fair trial.
The indictment was formally passed to the Southern District Military Court in Rostov on 19 November 2024, just before Malyshev’s 40th birthday. Since there were a number of hearings, it is likely that Malyshev denied some or all of the five charges. He was accused of ‘planning an act of terrorism’ (under Article 205 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code); ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’ (Article 205.4 § 2); ‘taking part in training to commit terrorist activities’ (Article 205.3 b);, as well as explosives charges under Articles 222.1 § 4 and Article 223.1 § 3.
It was purportedly established that, during a suspiciously long timeframe (“from August to the end of November 2022”), Malyshev had agreed to a suggestion from a representative of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence to “join and take part in a created terrorist organization”.
Malyshev’s supposed role in this ‘terrorist organization’ was to organize surveillance over the targets (supposedly chosen by this alleged ‘terrorist organization’s “leaders and organizers”. He was also to transport, carry and store explosive devices and other components needed for a homemade explosive device, and seemingly to take a direct part in what the aggressor state is claiming was “a terrorist act” through detonating an explosive device. Other unidentified individuals were supposed to have also taken on transporting, storing, etc. explosives and deciding that the target would be a collaborator, installed by the Russian occupiers as ‘head of the state road agency’ (seemingly, Ivan Mironov).
Malyshev was claimed to have arrived at a home in Melitopol at the end of October – beginning of November 2022, collected explosive devices, taken them to another place and to have “begun storing them” In April 2023, he had allegedly received videoed instructions on detonating the device, with this, presumably, to justify the charge of ‘training in terrorist activities’.
After, purportedly, observing Mironov’s car from 20 May to 13 June 2023, Malyshev, it was claimed, took the explosive device and on 13 June 2023, attached it under the car. Mironov had, supposedly discovered it and informed the occupation enforcement bodies who defused it. It is worth pointing out that Russian-installed occupation officials know very well how much they are hated, with Yevhen Balitsky, the collaborator, installed as ‘leader’ of occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast, complaining back in August 2023 that all of them had been forced to undergo training in survival, including scrupulously checking their cars for explosive devices. Such individuals are entirely legitimate targets and attempts by the aggressor state to treat any such attacks as ‘terrorism’ are absurd.
There is no suggestion that Malyshev was ‘caught red-handed’, nor any indication as to why he was ‘identified’. Suspicion is only exacerbated by the discrepancy in dates, with Malyshev claimed, in the court report, to have been “detained” on 5 July 2023, two weeks after he disappeared in circumstances that certainly pointed to an abduction.
The sentence was passed on 26 December 2023 by ‘judge’ Denis Vasilievich Stepanov. Artem Malyshev has been sentenced to 27 years’ maximum-security imprisonment, with the first five years in a prison, with the harshest conditions of any Russian penal institutions. He was also fined a massive 700 thousand roubles.
