Ukrainian bomb plot defendant says he was acting on Russian handler's orders

A Ukrainian defendant on trial in Poland over a bomb plot targeting Western logistics networks testified this week that he unknowingly helped ship explosives-laden massage pillows in summer 2024, but refused a demand from his handler to activate the devices himself.

The testimony from Vyacheslav Chebanenko was read aloud in Warsaw District Court on Thursday, part of the ongoing trial of four Ukrainians and one Russian charged with sabotage against logistics infrastructure and aviation. Novaya Gazeta Europe attended the hearing.

Chebanenko maintains he did not know the pillows contained explosives and that he was acting on the instructions of Yaroslav Mikhailov, a Russian national wanted in connection with the case who is now believed to be hiding in Azerbaijan.

Chebanenko previously served a prison sentence for raping his wife. In 2024, he and an acquaintance, Russian citizen Alexander Bezrukavy, moved from Ukraine to Spain and then to Poland.

At the latest hearing, several transcripts of Chebanenko's earlier interrogations were read into the record, detailing a trip he took to Lithuania in June 2024. Investigative journalists had previously reported that during this trip, Chebanenko received a package containing massage pillows, cosmetics and sex toys.

Prosecutors allege he then took the items to an apartment rented under a false Polish name, divided them into four batches, set timers on the devices, and left.

In the first transcript read by the judge, Chebanenko told investigators the Lithuania trip had been his own idea, undertaken without anyone's instruction. But later transcripts told a different story: he acknowledged retrieving the massage pillows from a Toyota Land Cruiser in Vilnius and carrying them to the rented apartment, where other items were already waiting.

Chebanenko said he had carried out these assignments on Mikhailov's instructions, in exchange for payment. But when Mikhailov later told him to activate all the massage pillows, Chebanenko refused — a refusal that sent Mikhailov into a rage and deepened the Ukrainian's suspicions.

“I didn't suspect there were any explosive substances in these devices. What I feared most was being set up with drugs. Yaroslav assured me there were no drugs and that he wouldn't set me up because we were friends,” the judge quoted from Chebanenko's testimony.

After Chebanenko refused to activate the devices, Mikhailov instructed him to pack them into a large black bag and deliver it to a specified address, where, according to Chebanenko, a Lexus was waiting. He left the bag in its trunk.

After each transcript was read aloud, Chebanenko confirmed he had made the statements but insisted his friend Bezrukavy had known nothing about what was happening — even though, according to the documents, he had earlier told investigators he'd spoken to Bezrukavy by phone and informed him what was happening.

The judge remarked that Chebanenko should have read the transcripts more carefully before signing them. Chebanenko responded that he had been driven to interrogations for four-hour stretches with a bag over his head, and that under those conditions he had often simply agreed with whatever the investigator said. It was the investigator, he claimed, who had concluded that Bezrukavy was involved in the massage-pillow shipment.

Chebanenko also spoke about his earlier prison sentence for the rape of his wife, saying he had served it not in Ukraine, as journalists had reported, but in Russia's Krasnodar region — and insisting he had not committed the crime, but his ex-wife had falsely accused him.

According to Chebanenko, he had maintained two “wives” — one legal, one not — and had tried to divide his time evenly between them. He and his legal wife had a child together. When his wife eventually learned of the affair, she left him for a new partner whom Chebanenko described as connected to Russian security services.

He told the court that his ex-wife, seeking to “protect” herself from him, had falsely accused him and used her new partner's connections within the Russian prosecutor's office and courts to secure a guilty verdict against him.