Editor’s Note: This article was written by Hromadske International (en.hromadske.ua), an English-language service of the independent Ukrainian Hromadske TV and is republished with permission. It can be found here.
While filmmaker Oleg Sentsov is the most famous of more than 100 Ukrainians held prisoner by Russia or in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, as many as 22 Russian citizens are serving prison sentences in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has shown a willingness to release these Russian citizens if the Kremlin will set free the Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia as part of an exchange.
Who are the 22 Russians being held? Kept secret at first, their names, along with photographs showing them writing the letters, have finally been revealed in recent Facebook posts by Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsperson Lyudmila Denisova.
Hromadske has gathered information about each convict.
Viktor Ageev
Viktor Ageev, a Kazakh-born Russian citizen, was arrested by Ukraine’s Armed Forces near the village of Zholobok in Luhansk Oblast in June 2017. His indictment states that he came to Donbas in spring 2017 after seeing an internet advertisement about “recruitment to serve as a contract soldier” for the Russian-controlled part of Luhansk Oblast.
In a July 2017 interview with Ukraine’s 1+1 television channel, Ageev did not deny being an officer in the Russian military. However, he refused to call Russia’s military invasion in Ukraine war, referring to it as “humanitarian help” instead.
Ageev was sentenced to 10 years of prison for taking part in the military action, illegal arms and ammunition possession. He is serving his sentence at a prison in Sumy Oblast.
Anatoliy Busygin
Anatoliy Busygin, who is being held in a pre-trial detention facility in Mariupol, was born in 1984 and comes from the Tyumen region of Russia.
Vyacheslav Vysotskiy
Denisova’s Aug. 16 Facebook post only states Vyacheslav Vysotskiy’s name and the location of the prison he is being held in, which is the correctional facility number 62 in the Cherkasy Region of Ukraine. Separatist media claim that Vysotskiy is a 72-year-old man with severe health problems who was detained on April 6, 2016, at the Senkovka checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border in the Chernihiv Region. He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for treason.
Aleksandr Valekhidis
According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) website, Aleksandr Valekhidis is a Russian intelligence services employee detained on July 30, 2014, in Lviv Oblast while sharing secret information. He was sentenced to 10 years and is currently serving his time in a prison in the western Ukrainian city of Drohobych.
Ruslan Gadzhiyev
A video published by the SBU in January 2015 shows Russian citizen Ruslan Gadzhiyev describing how he was detained for drunk driving in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don in December 2014. A couple of weeks later, a police commander offered to drop the charges, as well as those of several other inmates, in exchange for help “washing and transporting some military tanks.” Gadzhiyev says that’s how he ended upon the Russian-Ukrainian border, from where he was illegally transported to the Russian-occupied parts of Luhansk Oblast. The SBU says that Gadzhiyev was captured on the battlefield outside Sanzharivka in Donetsk Oblast. He was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment for participating in a terrorist organization and leading a war of aggression. He is currently imprisoned in Donetsk Oblast’s Bakhmut.
Valeriy Gratov
Ukrainian border guards detained Valeriy Gratov on July 9, 2017. He was reportedly attempting to enter the Transnistria breakaway area of Moldova on a false Ukrainian passport under the name of Valeriy Voytenko. Upon his arrest, law enforcement officers found a list of names and telephone numbers of people from Transnistria and several Russian citizens, an Order of the Red Star Soviet military badge, and a USB stick containing pictures of places in the Donbas where fighting has taken place, including Debaltseve, Donetsk airport, Horlivka, and Ilovaisk. Gratov is now in a pre-trial detention jail in Dnipro.
Vladislav Grechin
Vladislav Grechin is a Russian citizen, but resident of Odesa, where he was detained on March 17, 2016. At the time, the SBU stated that they had neutralized a sabotage group planning to blow up a pre-trial detention jail in Odesa. They were charged for making a public call to commit an act of terrorism. Grechin has been kept in pre-trial detention, along with two others, since then.
Oleg Doronin
According to the SBU, Russian citizen Oleg Doronin was made an offer to fight in Ukraine after his outstanding conviction for grievous bodily harm resulted in a rejection from military service within Russia. Doronin arrived in Ukraine in April 2015 fighting in the separatist Prizrak (Ghost) Brigade first and then moving to the Platov First Cossack Regiment. The SBU says Doronin went on at least six reconnaissance missions with the Cossack regiment.
The now‑27-year-old was detained in July 2015 in Luhansk Oblast’s Popasna. In January 2016, he was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment for participating in a terrorist organization.
Murat Dzhemiev
Murat Dzhemiev is reportedly a native of North Ossetia. He was detained by the SBU in November 2017 for “anti-state” activities.” According to the SBU press service, Dzhemiev and another Russian citizen were instructed by the Kremlin to organize an act of protest involving blocking transport highways. Dzhemiev is also suspected of trying to set Ukrainian MP Anton Herashchenko’s car on fire. He is currently in a pre-trial detention facility in Kyiv.
Sergey Egorov
Human rights activists told Hromadske that Sergey Egorov is a volunteer who came from Russia to fight in Donbas after being influenced by Russian propaganda. He has been held in a pre-trial detention jail in Mariupol for a few years already. His court hearings are constantly being postponed.
Farukh Kamalov
Farukh Kamalov served as the so-called “deputy minister of sport” in Russian-occupied Crimea between April 21, 2015, and April 21, 2016. According to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Crimea project Krym.Realii, Kamalov represented the ministry at government events, working groups and sporting competitions. In particular, he attended the Crimean Tatar Kuresh Fighting Championships. He was also an advisor within the Crimean pro-Russia movement Kyryrm.
On Feb. 2, the SBU detained Kamalov at the Kalanchak checkpoint. According to the agency’s spokesperson Olena Hitlyanska, Kamalov traveled to mainland Ukraine to obtain a biometric external passport. Kamalov is currently held in Kyiv’s Lukyanivska pre-trial detention center and faces 12 to 15 years imprisonment for state treason.
Igor Kimakovskiy
Igor Kimakovskiy came to Ukraine from Saint Petersburg. When he was detained in July 2015, the SBU reported that they had “arrested an FSB agent.” According to the SBU, he gathered information on the redeployment of Ukrainian military personnel. He has been in pre-trial detention for three years. In February 2018, the border guards who detained Kimakovskiy stated that he “served” at the checkpoint using documents of a sniper for the Russian-controlled area of Donetsk Oblast under the name Artem Sergeev, although the photo depicted Kimakovskiy. They searched the car and found a Russian passport in Kimakovskiy’s name along with a gun. A former university teacher, Kimakovskiy states that he traveled to Donbas as a volunteer carrying humanitarian aid. Despite the severity of the charges against him, Kimakovskiy has been released from custody twice. The last time he was arrested was June 18. He is accused of threatening Ukrainian territorial integrity.
Olga Kovalis and Pavel Chernykh
Olga Kovalis and Pavel Chernykh are a married couple who, according to investigators, established a network of informers in the government-controlled territories in Donetsk and Zaporizhia and tracked the movement of Ukrainian soldiers. They were detained in 2015 at a checkpoint near Mariupol. According to Hromadske’s source from within their inner circle, Kovalis gathered information on the military for the so-called DPR. Kovalis and Chernykh are accused of creating a terrorist organization. They are both being held in a pre-trial detention facility in Mariupol.
Valeriy Ivanov
Valeriy Ivanov was detained by Ukrainian servicemen in Stanitsa Luhanska in August 2015. During questioning, which was filmed by the SBU, he stated that he had traveled from Arkhangelsk, Russia, to help the Russian-backed separatists “fight the fascist regime” in Kyiv. He crossed the Russia-Ukraine border at the Izvarine checkpoint, which was not controlled by Ukrainian soldiers at the time. He also stated that he fought in two campaigns in Chechnya and had “become a volunteer through the recruitment station.” He is now in a prison colony in the western Ukrainian city of Drohobych.
Vasiliy Kusakin
According to the investigation, Vasiliy Kusakin messaged a militant in the Russian-controlled area of Donetsk Oblast in June 2015 on the Russian social network Odnoklassniki, saying that he wanted to serve as a mercenary. This militant then arranged his trip to Donetsk, where Kusakin passed his combat training. He then fought against Ukrainian soldiers, for which he earned around $300 a month, according to the indictment. In August 2017, a court in the Dnipropetrovsk Region sentenced Kusakin to eight years’ imprisonment. He pleaded guilty in court.
Yevgeniy Mefedov
Yevgeniy Mefedov was a defendant in the investigation involving the May 2, 2014 massacre in Odesa, in which pro-Russian and EuroMaidan Revolution demonstrations ended in violent clashes. Six people were killed in the fights, and a further 42 people died in a fire at the city’s Trade Unions’ Building. In 2017, a court in Chornomorsk acquitted all those accused as the “investigation could not gather enough evidence of guilt.”
The Odesa court of appeals released Mefedov in September 2017, but he was arrested in the courtroom on another charge — “actions aimed at forcible change, or overthrowing constitutional order, or of the government, or seizing state power,” for which he could face five to ten years of imprisonment. He is now in a pre-trial detention center in Mykolaiv Oblast.
Aleksandr Sattarov
Aleksandr Sattarov was detained in December 2017. According to the Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s press secretary Larysa Sargan, he is accused of “actively participating in the takeover of administrative buildings” in Crimea and helping Russian forces enter these buildings. Sattarov also served in the now disbanded Ukrainian riot police, the Berkut. The Berkut were responsible for a number of killings during the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014. Sattarov also later worked for a security firm in Dnipro, which is where he was detained by SBU officers. He is now held in a pre-trial detention in Kyiv.
Alexei Sedikov
Ukrainian soldiers detained Alexei Sedikov in July 2016 during clashes in Donbas. The SBU then opened a criminal case accusing him of creating a terrorist group. During questioning, Sedikov admitted that he came from Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia. He also revealed that militants earn a salary of around $227 (according to the exchange rate at the time) and he saw that Russian officers and soldiers were going to the occupied territories as advisors or heads of military units. According to the data gathered by the Ukrainian General Staff, Sedikov was a senior lieutenant in Russian Armed Forces. He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in 2017 on terrorism charges.
Denis Sidorov
Denis Sidorov arrived in Donbas in 2015 from Moscow, where he was a police officer. In the video of his questioning, Sidorov explains that he was detained by Ukrainian soldiers on Sept. 8, 2016, after crossing the contact line near the village of Novhorodske in Donetsk Region. In the same video, Sidorov also addresses Putin, saying that he is “sorry for coming to Donbas to take part in military actions,” and he urges fellow Russians not to travel to the occupied parts of Ukraine. According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Sidorov previously took part in the Chechen wars. He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment.
Yevgeniy Shatalov
Yevgeniy Shatalov came to Donetsk in 2013 from the town of Kurganinsk in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia to “find a life for himself,” as he explained during questioning. He said that he first worked in Donetsk as a loader, and only joined the Russian-backed militants when he started struggling financially. He left the Russian-occupied territories in 2017 to be with a girl living in Ukrainian government-controlled Mariupol. He was detained by Ukrainian soldiers while on his way there. He is now in pre-trial detention in Zhytomyr.
Aleksey Shybaiev
Aleksey Shybaiev, born in 1975, is from the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia. He is in pre-trial detention in Mariupol.
This story was translated by Sofia Fedeczko.
