Three men given long prison terms for attempted assassination of Ukrainian defector

A Moscow court has sentenced three men to long prison sentences for their involvement in the attempted assasination of a dissident Ukrainian intelligence officer, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday.

Two Russian nationals, Vladimir Golovchenko and Ivan Paskar, and one Ukrainian, Rostislav Zhuravlev, were found guilty of varying degrees of involvement in acquiring, transporting, and planting explosives used in the attempted assasination of Vasily Prozorov, a former Ukrainian intelligence officer who has lived in Russia since he was dismissed for “professional misconduct” in 2018.  

Paskar was accused of transporting bomb components from Poland to Russia, while Golovchenko was accused of installing an explosive device in Prozorov’s car. Zhuravlev was accused of spying on the former Ukrainian security official.

Golovchenko and Paskar were sentenced to 26 and 24 years in prison respectively, convicted on charges related to terrorism and the illegal manufacturing and acquisition of explosives. Zhuravlev pleaded guilty, took a plea bargain, and was sentenced to 16 years.

The target of the operation, Prozorov, left the Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, in 2018, relocating to Russia and admitting a year later that he had collaborated with Russian intelligence before leaving. He was hospitalised in the 2024 attempt on his life, but survived and regularly appears in the Russia media to discuss Ukrainian politics.