The FSB opened a criminal case against a group of people whom it considers members of the Moscow cell of the Penza anarchist group "Set". According to TASS, citing a source in law enforcement agencies, on February 27, FSB investigators conducted searches “at the addresses of anarchists and their relatives.”
According to the interlocutor of the agency, some of the anarchists convicted in the Network case were transferred to the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow and they testified.
Azat Miftakhov, a former graduate student of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, who is already serving a six-year sentence in the case of arson of the office of United Russia, is being tested for involvement in the Moscow cell of the Network.
“Previously convicted in the case of the interregional terrorist community Set gave confessions in the new criminal case and pointed to Miftakhov as one of the participants in the capital’s cell,” a TASS source said.
On February 10, 2020, a court in Penza sentenced members of the anarchist group Set, who were accused of creating a terrorist organization. Seven people were sentenced to terms ranging from 6 to 18 years in prison. The defendants in the case repeatedly reported torture with electric current, beatings and pressure from the security forces.
On February 27 of the same year, the Penza Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case on the murder of Ekaterina Levchenko, who disappeared in 2017, who was called a friend of those convicted in the Network case. This was preceded by the publication of Meduza, which stated that Dmitry Pchelintsev and Maxim Ivankin, convicted in the Network case, as well as their acquaintance Alexei Poltavets, could have been involved in the murder of Levchenko.
According to Levchenko's parents, Ekaterina and her friend Artem Dorofeev rented an apartment in Penza. In March 2017, they disappeared, and in November, the remains of a young man were found in a forest in the Ryazan region. The girl's body was never found.