A court in the city of Chita, in Russia’s Far East, has convicted 13 defendants of committing acts of railway sabotage aiming to thwart Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Sibirsky Express Telegram channel wrote on Wednesday.
While all the defendants were found guilty of committing acts of sabotage on a railway, three were also convicted of conspiracy to commit an act of terror.
According to the court’s press service, the defendants’ motive was to “destabilise the activity of the Russian authorities” and to “influence their decision” to stop the war in Ukraine.
The longest sentence — 23 years in prison — was handed to 20-year-old Yegor Kusonts. Vladislav Turtugeshev was sentenced to 21 years and Artyom Begoyan to 20 years.
Eight of the defendants were sentenced to terms ranging from 8.5 to 16 years. Alexey Nifontov was sentenced to four years in prison for aiding and abetting, according to Sibir.Realii, a Siberian branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The youngest defendant was 17 when detained, according to human rights group OVD-Info.
The defendants committed 13 acts of sabotage on railway and energy infrastructure in Moscow and the Siberian Krasnoyarsk region between December 2022 and January 2023, according to the prosecution. Investigators said the defendants had planned to set fire to fighter jets at a military unit in the Primorsky region in Russia’s Far East.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on Tuesday that 39 pro-Ukrainian “radicals” attempting to recruit young people via the Discord instant messaging platform to carry out acts of violence had been detained around the country. Nine of the suspects, aged between 14 and 35, were preparing armed attacks, according to the FSB.