Four Crimeans were sentenced on June 15 to imprisonment for "calling for the overthrow of the government" and "preparing a terrorist attack." This was reported with reference to the press service of the Southern District Military Court of Rostov-on-Don.
Andrei Kulievich, Nikolai Lagutin, Valentin Khoroshaev and Daniil Reshetnichenko were accused of posting leaflets calling for the overthrow of the state power of the Russian Federation and of "statements aimed at justifying such activities." In addition, the investigation believed that Kulievich, Lagutin and Khoroshaev were preparing an “explosion in a crowded place”, for which they made three explosive devices that they allegedly kept at their homes.
The court sentenced Kulievich to 7.5 years in a strict regime penal colony, Khoroshaev received 7 years and 3 months, Lagutin – 7 years, and Reshetnichenko – 2 years in a colony-settlement. At the same time, all of them, except for Reshetnichenko, will serve in prison for the first four years. Each court ordered to pay a fine of 250 thousand rubles.
According to the Grati publication, a key witness in the case of director Oleg Sentsov, student Alexander Pirogov, testified against the men. Sentsov and anarchist Alexander Kolchenko were detained in Crimea on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in Simferopol. As a result, both were sentenced to long terms in a strict regime colony. They were released in 2019 after a large prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.