Ilya Romanov: explosion and repression

Explosive biography

On the night of October 26, 2013, a man was admitted to a hospital in the center of Nizhny Novgorod with injuries to his arm, left eye and face. The injuries to the face and left eye were not serious, but doctors had to amputate the left hand and part of the forearm. An object exploded in his hands. According to investigators, it was a homemade bomb; according to the victim, it was a homemade firecracker.

Ilya Romanov, a local anarchist born in 1967, suffered from the night explosion. He has been involved in public life since the late 80s , his “track record” includes the now forgotten Democratic Union, the Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists , “Guardians of the Rainbow”, “Student Defense” , etc. But this is not the reason for the increased interest of the local center “E” to what happened with Ilya Romanov.

Romanov returned to Nizhny Novgorod from Ukraine only in 2012, before being hospitalized (and from the hospital to a pre-trial detention center) he worked in low-paid jobs. According to Russian laws, he has no criminal record, although he served 10 years in Ukraine in the “ case of Odessa separatists .” It was a leftist group that intended at the beginning of the 2000s to separate a number of regions from Ukraine and create a Black Sea Soviet republic there.

The rebels distributed propaganda materials, including in military units, purchased weapons, and carried out several attacks on retail outlets for the purpose of expropriation, including inflicting gunshot wounds on the guards of the attacked establishments. The group also had a shootout with police officers, and then with Berkut and SBU officers. One of the attacks was carried out in Moscow, so some of the defendants in the case are serving out their sentences in Russia. Ilya Romanov’s episode in this case is the explosion of a low-power bomb in Kyiv next to the SBU building.

The complaint of the defendants in the “case of Odessa separatists” was sent to the ECHR, primarily about torture during the investigation. This is how they describe their misadventures: “Danilov and Alekseev, who offered armed resistance to Berkut during their arrest, were especially cruelly tortured. Alekseev held on courageously until the moment when he was confronted with his fiancee, seventeen-year-old Polskaya. The exhausted girl, whom the police scum threatened to rape with a mop, begged him to submit, and he signed a statement incriminating him and his comrades, after which he tried to commit suicide, but did not die, but was only seriously injured.

Danilov was beaten for several days: they hung him on a rack, beat his head against the wall, jumped on him, and left him naked in a cold cell. As a result, the man's teeth were knocked out and seven ribs were broken, the fragments of which damaged his lung. Danilov developed purulent pleurisy, from which the suspect almost died, and subsequently developed tuberculosis.

In the fall of 2003, at the beginning of the trial in Odessa, 20-year-old Berdyugin, handcuffed to a hospital bed, died of cancer. Already at the first court hearing he was carried in his arms. Before that, he signed anything, sometimes inventing some non- existent people - so as not to be beaten.”

Ilya Romanov’s wife, Larisa (now lives in Moscow), also served about 6 years in Russia, and also for the explosion of a low-power bomb next to the FSB reception, as well as for allegedly preparing an assassination attempt on the then governor of the Krasnodar Territory Nikolai Kondratenko - also through an explosion. Larisa Romanova denies her guilt; her defense was handled by the famous lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was later killed by the Nazis. The case of the explosion at the reception area of ​​the FSB recently demanded that the ECHR review it.

Nizhny Novgorod bomb

With such a biography, of course, it is not surprising that the Nizhny Novgorod center “E”, the FSB and the Investigative Committee did not believe Ilya Romanov’s version (that he was simply walking at night with a homemade firecracker) and are trying to accuse him of a terrorist attack.

But law enforcement officers have no evidence of preparation of a terrorist attack. Ilya Romanova admits that his manipulations with explosives can be described by Article 222 of the Criminal Code, but notes that the object that exploded in his hands did not have any destructive elements and was tens of times less powerful than a grenade. There is a military registration and enlistment office not far from the site of the explosion, but Romanov says that he learned about this during the investigation, there was no reason to attack him. There was a little less than a year before the events in Donbass, when the army found itself at the center of political discussions.

From the point of view of the Donbass separatists, the left-wing radicals who tried to create the Black Sea Soviet Republic are heroes. One of them served his sentence in territory controlled by the DPR; he was solemnly released from the colony. Another person involved in this case (previously released) received burns on May 2, 2014 during a fire in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa.

“A criminal record in Ukraine, which the “faces” considered their trump card when charging me under Article 205 , is now turning out to be just the other side,” writes Romanov. So now, as Romanov claims, they are demanding evidence from him that he is collaborating with the Ukrainian intelligence services.

Text forgery

the terrorist motive for Romanov’s actions The investigation proves with two files allegedly found on his computer. The first contains a misspelled insult to government officials, the second contains the release of the neo-Nazi publication “Aryan Terror. Magazine on practical training of white terrorists.” Romanov insists that both files were recorded on his computer by law enforcement officers.

Romanov described the files in detail in his application to the Committee against Torture. The first is called “text.doc” and “represents two illiterate lines containing obscene language”:

“Shantsev, Sorokin, Kondrashov, if you don’t stop destroying the parks, I’ll blow everyone up to the ****** mother.”

Valery Shantsev is the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Oleg Sorokin is the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, and Oleg Kondrashov is the head of the city administration.

During his participation in various movements, Romanov wrote dozens of polemical articles, and knows the rule of the Russian language about the particle “not”, which is written separately with verbs.

In the decision to bring Romanov as a defendant, FSB investigator Ilya Kaurkin described this text as follows: “Also during the specified period of time (between January 1 and October 26, 2013) Romanov I.E. made an appeal to the authorities threatening to commit an explosion.”

The second file, the creation of which is attributed to the anarchist, is called “Aryan Terror. Magazine on practical training of white terrorists.” “The first page shows a swastika in a circle, accompanied by the inscription “NSPR” (probably “ National Socialist Party of Russia”),” Romanov describes this publication. It has sections on making explosives, poisons and improvised explosive devices.

“The level of intelligence with which the falsification was carried out, in my opinion, clearly points to the CPE operatives,” Romanov sums up and adds that he has always adhered to anti-fascist convictions.

Operatives of the Nizhny Novgorod center “E” had previously been at the center of a similar scandal - during the “case of the Red Anarchy of Skinheads” they gave local anti-fascists identification cards of a non-existent radical organization.

Operative threats

Ilya Romanov also demands that a criminal case be opened against the operatives for threats. His statement, which is now being considered by the Investigative Committee, refers to the actions of employees of Center “E” of Nizhny Novgorod, who on December 6, 2013 took Romanov out of the pre-trial detention center for a “conversation”, during which they insulted him, threatened Romanov himself with physical harm and “creating an intolerant atmosphere for loved ones relatives." At the same time, employees of Center “E” demanded that Romanov write a confession.

“As proof of the seriousness of these intentions, I was informed that employees of the Center for Pretrial Investigation had already interrogated my minor daughter Evgenia Ilyinichna Romanova, born in 1997. Trifonov A.V. (the head of the Nizhny Novgorod Center “E”) suggested that I write that I am a “member of an underground terrorist group,” and also that I am an “agent of the Ukrainian special services.” I categorically refused to write any confessions,” he writes.

The investigation is also considering the possibility of adding a charge of extremist appeals to Romanov. If this happens, another legal conflict will arise. Romanov’s statements were republished by the Russian website Forum.msk.ru, but they were made in Ukraine - in an interview with local anarchists immediately after his release from the colony.