Translated material
The name is legion
"Gosizmens" from Telegram - how they are judged, how they are tortured and how to distinguish them from those who are really rejected by Ukraine
Photo: PSOS FSB RF / TASS
The fact that the “Liberty of Russia”*is, following the fate of the Politicals, part of the non -free country learned after the fourteen -year -old Arseniy Turbin was then planted in June 2024. He was accused of cooperation with the “Legon”-of trying to join this association and, at the direction of telegram fuels, laid out opposition leaflets from there from there. The accusation was built on the fact that Arseny wrote to the Legion chat boot, the chat administrators in response asked him to fill out and send a questionnaire with his data, and then perform special tasks-the boy did not do either. But the court still considered that the entry into the forbidden organization took place - and recognized the fourteen -year -old teenager with a terrorist and extremist.
The semi -mythical organization of the LSR itself became extremist in May 2024, when Rosfinmonitoring introduced it to the corresponding register - and two months before, in March, it, by the decision of the Supreme Court, became terrorist and prohibited.
She is semi -mythical because so far no one knows for sure whether the Legion exists physically:
The fact that a separate military association was formed from Russian prisoners and volunteers, from the Ukrainian side has been declared since March 2022, but still argue about the reliability of the photo and video of the actions performed at the front.
But regardless of the reality or unreality of what he does physically, judging by the statistics of sentences in Russian courts, LSR is incredibly active virtually: hundreds of peaceful Russian inhabitants to commit sabotage and terrorist attacks within the country.
One problem: most of these cases - and these are cases usually excited under articles 205, 281 and 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - are kept against people, most likely, there are nothing to do with the “legion” and not even suspects that they violate the law.
During the year, doing the cases of extremists and terrorists, I was looking for a long time to confirm that at least in part of them it was real - and not by sentence, not bypassed bypassing all examinations of the conclusions of the court and investigation - the Ukrainian side was involved. Found.
Indeed: lawyers who prefer not to call names - neither their own nor their clients - they say that there are such prisoners convicted for the Stateizer, who lived or went abroad for a while - to visa -free countries, say, Moldova. In these countries, on a special base, they were trained, which was individual, lasted several months and during which they were specially trained to perform sabotage and terrorist attacks. Each student had a very narrow specialty: someone learned to purchase phones or other equipment, someone-to collect explosives, someone-to arrange caches. During their studies, the recruited people met a man who later became their curator - he gave orders when and what to do. After undergoing training, they (now the prisoners) came to Russia and were engaged in what they were taught. And then they sat down under Articles 205 (terrorist attack), 281 (sabotage) and 275 (Gosisman).
There are such things. But the problem is that the percentage of these - real - cases in which real saboteurs have been convicted are clearly negligible in relation to the total number of processes over those who, even before all sentences, are introduced into the register of extremists and terrorists. In this case, it is impossible to calculate the exact statistics - the courts are often information about closed processes on these articles, official sources underestimate the data almost three times. And from the situation that obliges to give at least any complete and objective picture of what is happening with these cases in the courts, the only way out seems to me that used in this article.
Dmitry Muratov **, speaking of the criteria for the quality of the journalistic text, usually retells the story that Anatoly Agravsky once cited as an example. This story about how during the war the reconnaissance boy brought a note with the data obtained to the headquarters-and they were all divided into three columns: he saw himself, I suppose. The structure that this scout was used is actually universal-but it is especially suitable for such a topic as the things from Telegraph.
So the text of this article will consist of three blocks: of the history of a particular convicted person, but, in my opinion, an obviously innocent “two -year -old”; of those statistical and documentary data that is still possible to collect and compare, that is, to see with your own eyes; And from the lyrical retreat of the journalist, who spent the year, leafing through and flipping to the pain similar to each other, whose name is “legion”.
I heard
At first, the nephew Maxim disappeared at the front. After demobilization from the army, he managed to stay at home for less than a year - and he celebrated his twenty -first birthday at the front. He disappeared during the shelling of the village of Chervonopopovka in the Luhansk region -
The colleagues said: wounded deadly, do not look. But which family will take this and meekly believe in death - all the more so if no one has seen the body either, and DNA tests sent to the Rostov morgue did not give coincidences.
And then in one of the telegram channels, where a video with prisoners are published from time to time, a guy, very similar to Maxim, flickered-and the hope that he did not die became even stronger. The family began to look for him - and especially the Uncle Maxim Konstantin Gladkov spent a lot of efforts in search.
Kostya with a loud for the Belgorod region (no, not a relative of the governor) was very close with his nephew - both spiritually and territorially: he was not only his own uncle, but also his godfather and lived in a neighboring house in the village of Soloti near Belgorod.
The bone had a semblance of its own business: its excavator, which was operated by the villagers, and the cutting workshop. He even gathered and installed solar batteries in his yard-and wanted to connect to them the neighboring neighbors, so that he had to pay less for electricity. And he brought and bred rare grape varieties on his plantation. There was a lot of cases with all this farm - there was no time to go even outside the district, but Kostya had never been abroad. Working hands were needed all the time - and they did a lot with Maxim. And when the nephew returned from the army and especially needed money, Kostya provided him with work and salary - he paid more than himself: youth should be well -fed.
When Maxim disappeared, Kostya and his wife Nina began to send letters with a request to search everywhere, the document was able to reach: they wrote to the military unit, wrote to the military prosecutor’s office, in the Ministry of Defense, wrote to the Red Cross, wrote Moskalkova, wrote to military commissars and volunteers - there was little sense. Then they began to look for Ukrainian TG canals: they subscribed to public funds and volunteers, looked at the channels of the Ukrainian military, everywhere they sent offs, leaving the numbers of their phones for feedback. In the end, that is, in December 2023, the number called on Kostin - someone who introduced himself as an employee of the Donbass charity foundation, said that Maxim was found.
And they believed - not particularly trying to check, but not for the word: such a fund really was, it could be found on VKontakte, and screenshots with its description were preserved in the materials of the affairs: “Our organization was created on April 6, 2023 in Moscow. For one purpose - to return those who gave everything for their homeland, back home. We believe that every soldier deserves freedom and dignity, and we do our best to provide them with a safe and prosperous return. ” The humanistic ideals of the fund, apparently, did not last long - now there is no longer a public with such a description in VK.
But then this public was, and the family also transmitted the data of Maxim to this fund through a person called military commander Arseniy Rudakov. And although Rudakov suddenly ceased to get in touch, the representative of the fund soon called the representative of the fund soon. Moreover, Fedor - so the representative introduced himself - handed the phone to the guy, whose voice was very similar to Maxim's voice. Kostya was told that the nephew was wounded, that he was captured, that he needed hospitalization and that for his transportation they need to send them 10 million rubles.
When it turned out that an honest agronomist from the village of Soloti did not have that kind of money, Fedor showed amazing conspiracy: he offered to provide a service instead of money - to make metal brackets and take them to where he would say, and also mix several chemical ingredients. Fyodor, of course, forbade contacting the police - the same "could interfere with the return of Maxim."
The versions of what was next is diverge. At the first interrogation of Kostya - with a defying face and a cut ear, in the preserved photo - a sealed with a patch in the most unexpected places - admitted that he performed both: he made and hedgehogs and explosives from the nitrate. But, having recovered after the first interrogation, he stated in court that the testimonies were given under torture, he did not mix and kept any chemicals, but he made metal brackets and took on March 7 to where it was said - to the forest near the village of Foshchevatovo, to a cache. A day later, 50 thousand rubles left for him brought from the same cache. This, however, did not help Maxim.
On March 15, Konstantin was alone at home - he drank after the ALEALEAL tea when a dog got stuck in the yard. He opened the door - he was put his face on the floor and, as he later said in court, was brought in the fact that later in the verdict they would call “nine sealed packages of ammonium nitrate weighing 1 kg each” and “polymer five -liter bottle containing a rampant substance of gray color”. They also found allegedly assembled and supposedly explosive device, which Kostya allegedly was going to set fire to all this. Both that and the other and the third, according to the same sentence, were seized during operational-search activities.
For interrogation, he was taken in a prison on his head with a black bag, with his hands behind his back and squatting - it was forbidden to sit on the floor of the car carrier. In this pose I had to spend several hours. And when the next day the first court session was held - the election of a preventive measure -
Nina who came to the court did not recognize her husband: the cheek was dissected and pushed, the ear was cut and moves away from the back of the head with the lobe. He raised his shirt: the lower back was absolutely black - as he said, from electric shockers. He did not throw trousers, but assured that his legs look the same.
Although Nina and the lawyer insisted on initiating the case due to abuse of official duties, the SK came a decision to refuse: as the lawyer said, the court anonymously interrogated one of the operatives present during interrogation-and he said that no violence was applied to Kostya. The court had no more questions - I decided that there was no evidence of the application of violence by employees and Konstantin gave evidence voluntarily. And he received injuries, apparently, unsuccessfully falling from the shk. With whom it has never been lately.
At that, the first, interrogation, Kostya for the first time found out that he had communicated not at all with the Donbass Tears Foundation - but with the Legion of Freedom of Russia. What is it - neither he nor Nina knew then; They knew that this is one of the TG channels, to which they subscribed in search of the nephew.
Kostya, really, wrote to them in a chatbot-his only message was like this: “Hello! I am from the Belgorod region., Valuysky district. How to communicate with you so that it is inaccessible to third parties? " This message was considered by evidence that Kostya became a participant in the Legion - although he did not send any profiles that the Legion always requires, he did not send anywhere. And the way it proved that he was corresponding precisely with the “legion”, it is still not clear to him or his wife: he communicated with a bot by name (...) ( the name is known for the editorial office and contained in the case file - ed .) - but the fact is that the Supreme Court decides to recognize the LSR with a completely different address (@legionoFfreedom and @Vdlegionoffreedom). Who actually administers the bot that Kostya wrote is impossible to determine.
And it’s not that the identity of the “legions” was especially sought to prove - how no one tried to go and see if the cache is actually near the village of Foshchevatovo and how it was not difficult for the investigation to read the examination of the mixture found near the bone. Because if it gave this work to itself, it would become clear that this mixture could not be blown up simply because when heated it gives a completely different effect - melting. At least, it was impossible to blow it up with the device that was allegedly found in the house.
But neither this nor much other consequence was convinced - the costume was first accused of storing explosives (Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and illegal storage of weapons (223.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and very soon in terrorism (Article 205.5, organization and participation) and in Gosizmen (Article 275).
To the question: "And for what?" -Kostya, as he says, answered simply and directly: that now the 275th article is “in the kit”.
I saw
As already mentioned, it is impossible to calculate how many people like Kostya are in the country - simply because it is possible to separate the victims of the provocation from the recruited only by hand, studying the materials of each case separately.
But in December 2024, the analytician Kirill Parubets, who collaborates with the “first department” **, by open sources, gathered the statistics of how many people became the defendants in the cases of state reception, confidential cooperation with a foreign state and espionage since 1997, when the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation entered into force.
It turned out that at least 1000. As stated in the article, “792 of them were prosecuted after the beginning ***. 359 people received real terms in 2024. " And this, as they say, is not the limit - according to one of the lawyers of the same “first department”, for the first half of 2025 such people are already about 200.
But all these data do not relate to article 205, nor to article 281 - almost dead until 2022 and a risen sudden jerk after. How powerful this jerk could be shown by another official statistics: in May, I had the calculations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in my hands, according to which there were no registered sabotage in 2019-2020, in 2018-1, in 2017-3, in 2016-2 and further in the same range.
But we will be honest: dry numbers with dry numbers-but much more interested in the answer to the question “how much?”, But the answer to the question “How to distinguish?”.
More precisely: is it possible to distinguish innocent from real saboteurs, terrorists and gosmens? As it turns out, upon closer examination, you can.
If we put a nearby volume of two different criminal cases, one of which will pass the saboteur recruited by Ukraine, and for the second-the victim of the provocation, the game in “Find so many differences” will be quite easy:
Firstly, real saboteurs do not communicate through telegrams. However, through Votsap (belongs to META, which the authorities of the Russian Federation considered extremist) they do not communicate either. There are any other protected messengers, but not these.
Secondly, in cases of real recruitment, the contractor is familiar with the “curator” personally-they get acquainted on the basis where they are trained. By the time the saboteur gets to Russia, they have already exchanged contacts-therefore, they do not have any “Fedorov”, unknown and suddenly appeared after a careless commentary in any of the social networks.
Thirdly, when preparing real sabotage and terrorist attacks, no one will ask the performer to lay out leaflets on other people's mail cabinets, take pictures of cars with the letter “Z”, set fire to relay cabinets or forgotten locomotives. For it is difficult to imagine a “legionnaire” who sleeps and sees a flaming skeleton of a written -off train.
But between the recruited and the victims of provocations there are much in common, first of all, torture, which both are subjected to.
They are tortured equally: cruelly, in the living, achieving the same thing-recognition. Both those and others are obliged to admit guilt - regardless of whether this wine really exists.
At the same time, the tortures of both of them are guaranteed from punishment - and we also saw these documented guarantees with our own eyes when last week Russia announced the exit from the European Convention against torture.
Of course, the Russian authorities now claim that everything misunderstood everything - that this does not mean the legalization of torture in the country. They say: after all, we have our, domestic, 21st article of the Constitution, according to which “the dignity of personality is protected by the state. <...> No one should be tortured, violent, other cruel or humiliating human dignity or punishment. No one can be without voluntary consent to medical, scientific or other experiences. ” But this is the problem: compliance with the Constitution is just what Russian society has not seen for too long.
Предполагаю
Если начать общаться с кем-то из белгородцев, чьи родственники и друзья обвинены в терроризме и госизмене, очень скоро окажется, что счет таких знакомых идет на десятки. Белгородская область — не самая, но точно одна из самых густонаселенных «госизменниками» территорий. Очевидно, из-за близости к передовой.
Точной статистики нет и здесь — но есть впечатления тех, кто ходит на свидания и носит передачи, кто знакомится в очередях с товарищами по несчастью и сокамерниками сыновей и мужей. Впечатление простое: таких очень много — может, не легион, но счет точно идет на десятки.
И наверное, именно из-за концентрации одинаковых трагедий становится очевиднее одна общая: эти люди, попадая за решетку, остаются один на один со стенами камеры.
О них не говорят — родные и друзья боятся либо за них, либо за себя. Но бывает и хуже: не говорят с ними самими. От них отворачиваются собственные матери, дочери, друзья, коллеги.
Логика простая: «У нас в стране просто так не сажают», — да, такое древнее поверье до сих пор живо в российской провинции. Об одной из девушек, сидящей по той же статье, говорят: собственная мать запретила бороться за ее внесение в списки на обмен, сказав: «Раз посадили, пусть посидит». Все попытки узнать об этой девушке хоть что-то провалились: на просьбу рассказать о ней никто не отозвался, хотя, по словам местных, семью ее знает все село.
И даже если родные просят рассказать об их сидельцах сами, это не гарантирует того, что журналист сможет с ними работать. Чем, например, ответить на просьбу написать о Петре Горбунове — жителе села Дальняя Игуменка под Белгородом, тоже обвиненном в сотрудничестве с «Легионом» и приговоренном к 17 годам лишения свободы, — если единственным источником информации о его деле оказывается обвинительное заключение? При этом одно из главных доказательств в его деле — все те же первые показания, данные, как можно предположить, под пытками: его мать Раиса рассказывает, что на первом свидании у сына были сломаны ребра, выбиты зубы, а на руках видны были розовые полосы содранной кожи, как если бы его запястья долго были перетянуты чем-то жестким или если бы его подвешивали за руки.
Почти ничего — по крайней мере, ничего достоверно — не известно о делах Одинажон Назимовой, Софьи Рыжковой, Богдана Белого и многих других жителей близлежащих сел и поселков. Их семьи и знакомые не выходят на связь — кто из страха, кто из убежденности, что суд во всем разобрался, и раз судья сказал, значит, их сын, или дочь, или друг — и правда террорист.
«Как он мог за него не заступиться, он же был его лучшим другом!» — возмущается жена одного из таких перед его же матерью. «Ну а что, ему из-за него подставляться, что ли?» — отвечает мать. Теперь это — новая норма.
Никогда не знаешь, что может спровоцировать в России гражданскую войну и по какой границе пройдет очередное разделение на условно «красных» и условно «белых». Зато можно быть уверенным, что холодная гражданская война идет в стране прямо сейчас — и границей между теми и этими стала тюремная решетка. Это — граница между любовью к той родине, которую показали по телевизору, и любовью к родному человеку, которого приказали считать врагом.