Russia’s Second Eastern District Military Court has ‘convicted’ Anton Saikhiev of ‘publicly justifying terrorism’ and added two years to his original 18-year sentence. Since the imprisoned Ukrainian defender was held in solitary confinement at the time and could not do anything ‘publicly’, it seems likely that the two years were added to his sentence in reprisal for his courageous stand during his second ‘trial’. On that occasion, he not only admitted to the comments about Russian invaders and their killing of civilians over which he was accused of ‘discrediting Russia’s armed forces’ but reiterated them in court.
Anton Saikhiev was born on 14 July 1987 in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, He was serving in the Twelfth Operational Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard, with this including a separate ‘Azov’ special purpose unit when he and other defenders of Mariupol were taken prisoner in May 2022.
He was ‘tried’ and sentenced to 18 years’ maximum-security imprisonment on 27 November 2024 on grotesque ‘terrorism’ charges, based solely upon a politically motivated Russian supreme court ruling from 2 August 2022. That declared the Ukrainian Armed Forces Azov Regiment a ‘terrorist organization’. The preposterous and quite unwarranted ruling has been used ever since to claim that men and women defending their country within their own Armed Forces were engaged in terrorism and pass massive sentences, up to life imprisonment.
The formal charges against Saikhiev, and in most such prosecutions, were of ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’, under Article 205.5 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code, and with ‘training in terrorist activities’ under Article 205.3. He is serving that illegal sentence at Prison Colony No. 8 in Ulan-Ude, a city in the East Siberian republic of Buryatia. He had been recognized as a political prisoner by the authoritative Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project long before Russia staged a second ‘trial’ or, at least, a second sentence. He was charged with ‘discrediting Russia’s armed forces” under Article 20.3.3 of Russia’s Code of administrative offences, one of the four new charges aimed at silencing protest and passed into law within 10 days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On that occasion, two fellow prisoners were used to testify that Saikhiev had stated “that the Russian armed attacked Ukraine, that it occupied Ukrainian territory and that the presence of the Russian army on Ukrainian territory is unlawful; that the Russian army killed civilian residents and bombed Ukrainian social sites”.
Not only was every word of this correct, but Saikhiev himself confirmed that he had said it and repeated the words in court. This did not stop ‘judge’ Natalia Alekseyevna Kuzubova of the Oktyabrsky district court in Ulan Ude from finding him ‘guilty and imposing a 30 thousand rouble fine.
Russia is increasingly using other prisoners to bring new charges against Ukrainian POWs and / or political prisoners, usually in order to increase the original sentence with this the format of the third ‘trial’ as well.
Mediazona reports that criminal charges were brought against Saikhiev and handed to the court on 27 April 2026. It was claimed that he had, during conversations, “publicly justified terrorism”. It seems that Saikhiev passed on to the defence that he had been held in a cell by himself and had not spoken with anyone. He did, however, agree to the charge so that he could be moved to the Ulan-Ude SIZO [remand prison] as in the prison colony he was regularly thrown into the punishment cell. There was no ‘trial’ as such with the court on 4 May scheduling the first and only ‘hearing’ on 13 May 2026, with it unclear however many minutes this ‘hearing’ lasted before ‘judge’ Oleg Viktorovich Yugolainin convicted Saikhiev of ‘publicly justifying terrorism’, under Article 205.2 § 1 of Russia’s criminal code.
Please write to Anton Saikhiev!
Ukrainian POWs, and especially those who defended Mariupol, receive appalling treatment in Russian captivity. Letters tell them that they are not forgotten and hopefully increase the chance that Ukraine can secure his release in one of the next prisoner exchanges.
They, unfortunately, need to be in Russian and handwritten, and should be on ‘safe’ subjects (nothing about Russia’s war of aggression nor about the charges against him). ChatGPT and similar programs do an adequate job of translating into Russian but try not to use idioms and colloquial expressions that can easily get mistranslated.
Address
670000, РФ, г. Улан-Удэ, ул. Пристанская, 4, ФКУ СИЗО-1 УФСИН России по Республике Бурятия,
Сайхиев Антон Павлович, 1987 г. р.
