On June 27, the Yessentuki City Court (Stavropol Krai) sentenced local resident Sergei Dudchenko to seven and a half years in prison under articles on the storage and sale of weapons (part 1 and part 7 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code), the storage of explosives (part 1 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code) and drugs (part 2 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code). Anna Murneva, the wife of Dudchenko's friend Nikolai Murneva, who is also involved in another criminal case, told OVD-Info about this. The case file is on the court's website.
Dudchenko was detained on October 8, 2022. He openly wrote anti-war posts on Instagram and organized a motorcycle rally with a Ukrainian flag.
On the same day, searches were conducted at Vladimir Burmay and Kirill Buzmakov's homes. A few days later, on October 12, a search was also conducted at Nikolai Murnev's home. In Murnev's garage, operatives found bottles of Molotov cocktails, a metal detector, an empty grenade launcher tube, bolts, wires, bottles of antifreeze and industrial alcohol, and gloves. Anna Murneva, Nikolai's wife, assumes that the Molotov cocktails were planted in the garage when the search warrant was being read to her.
All four men are involved in the case of preparing a terrorist attack by a group (paragraph "a" of Part 2 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code with the note of Part 1 of Article 30 of the Criminal Code). OVD-Inforeported on this criminal case. According to Murneva, her husband and his three friends were united by a common hobby - cars and motorcycles. They discussed these topics in a group chat on Telegram for eight people, where they also discussed the war in Ukraine and criticized the Russian authorities. Buzmakov, Dudchenko and Murnev are in pretrial detention. Burmay managed to leave Russia.
Murnev was repeatedly tortured and beaten, demanding that he testify against Dudchenko.
The case of possession and sale of weapons, possession of explosives and drugs, for which Dudchenko was sentenced in June, has been separated from the terrorist attack case. Nikolai Murnev is a witness in this case.
After the war in Ukraine began, the Russian authorities began to react sharply to protest sentiments. The list of articles under which those speaking out against the war are prosecuted is quite broad. The defendants in “anti-war cases” are often charged with hooliganism, vandalism, violence against government officials, and other violations. Articles introduced into the Criminal Code after the start of military actions also became a significant element of pressure: the dissemination of “fakes” about the Russian army and discrediting the armed forces. At the moment, more than 950 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protests against the war with Ukraine. More details on this are in our infographic .