Naughty girls with a bomb

The trial of four activists of the Slavic Community, accused of organizing explosions last winter - on Vladimirskaya Square and in the McDonald's restaurant - is moving towards a natural conclusion. Tomorrow, December 23, the jury will have to make a verdict: the defendants are guilty or innocent. The last two hearings in the case of Fyodor Kovalchuk, Evgeniy Skorov, Alexander Petrishchev and their minor associate last week were entirely devoted to debate between the parties.
The discussion revolved around the main question: are the actions of the four terrorism or just hooliganism, albeit especially malicious, with the use of explosives? The fact is that the concept of terrorism that exists in the public consciousness is somewhat different from the legal definition of this phenomenon given in the current Criminal Code. In the public consciousness, terrorism with all its range of techniques (explosions, murders, kidnappings) is an extremely radical form of political struggle and the achievement of precisely political goals. In this case, terror can be carried out both against authorities and their representatives, and against non-state political organizations (parties, trade unions, public associations) and their activists. Since the second half of the 20th century, terrorists have increasingly chosen random people and ordinary people as their victims to create panic in society and provoke distrust in the government, which does not have the ability to cope with the terrorist threat.
As for the criminal law, it defines the “tasks” of terrorism somewhat differently: just “influencing decision-making by authorities or international organizations.” If we proceed from the logic of modern Russian legislation, then the organization of explosions, murders, beatings and other violence, aimed not at the authorities, but at the people and political opponents, is no longer terrorism, but especially dangerous hooliganism.
Based on this logic, the representative of the state prosecution announced the reclassification of the actions of Kovalchuk and his three accomplices in the case of the explosion on Vladimirskaya Square from terrorism to especially dangerous hooliganism: after all, the explosion of the “infernal machine” was directed against the St. Petersburg “antifa”, which had nothing to do with the state machine . True, as the defendants’ lawyers rightly noted, based on this logic, it is completely unclear what “impact on the authorities” the explosion at McDonald’s should have achieved.
The prosecution tried to convince the jury that in order to achieve their goals, the defendants illegally manufactured homemade explosives and explosive devices, stored and transported them, and then organized two explosions and that the guilt of the defendants was fully proven by all the evidence presented to the jury.
Two of the victims also took the floor. A saleswoman from a flower stall blown up on Vladimirskaya Square, who was injured instead of the antifa who canceled their action, said that her whole life had been turned upside down (her mother died from nervous experiences, and her diabetes worsened), and asked for a trial if the defendants were convicted guilty, punish them to the fullest extent. A girl who was concussed in an explosion at McDonald's testified that the moral trauma for her turned out to be much more significant than the material losses. “It’s not so scary to lose your down jacket in winter, damaged by an explosion, it’s scary to live for two years with ringing in your ears and wake up at night from nightmares. I don’t want people who consider themselves a step above everyone else to casually interfere with the course of my life.”
Then the defendants' lawyers captured the jury's attention.
Speaking in defense of Fyodor Kovalchuk, his lawyer Alexander Semenov noted that his client did not deny guilt from the very arrest, admitted his involvement in the explosions and did not try to evade responsibility. But, according to the lawyer, Kovalchuk’s terrorist aspirations have not been proven in any way - he did not put forward any demands on government authorities, but simply wanted to speak out against “Western dominance” and in defense of the interests of the indigenous population of Russia.
And the “Slavic Community,” according to lawyer Kovalchuk, is not a radical organization, being registered with the Ministry of Justice, having a legal address and a charter.
Let us recall that in February 2007, a flower stall was blown up near the Vladimirskaya metro station and a saleswoman was shell-shocked. As a result of the explosion at McDonald's, about a dozen people were already concussed (four of the victims had to be hospitalized), part of the ceiling with a ventilation console collapsed and part of the interior wall of the restaurant collapsed - material damage was estimated at 2 million rubles, and total damage at almost 3 million .

Alexander SAMOILOV