Russians Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev sentenced in Kiev to 14 years of imprisonment for terrorism

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The Kiev district court sentenced Russian citizens Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, who were detained in 2015 in the Donbass, who were accused of assisting the activities of a terrorist organization and carrying out a terrorist act, to 14 years of imprisonment.

Immediately after the arrest, Alexandrov and Yerofeyev, who can now be exchanged for the Ukrainian woman-pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who was convicted in Russia, claimed that they were serving in the Russian army, but in court they were called unemployed.

“Erofeev and Aleksandrov are found guilty […] of waging an aggressive war by prior conspiracy by a group of persons, facilitating the activities of a terrorist organization by prior conspiracy of a group of persons […], carrying out a terrorist attack […], using weapons to provoke a military conflict by prior conspiracy by a group of persons.” ,” the Interfax agency quotes the judge as saying.

The state prosecution demanded for the Russians 15 years of imprisonment. Lawyer Erofeev Oksana Sokolovskaya said that the defense will appeal the verdict. According to her, no evidence of the prosecution confirms the articles imputed to the detainees.

At the final stage of the trial, Sokolovskaya replaced Yevgeny Yerofeyev’s lawyer, Yuri Grabovsky, as a defender found dead in late March.

For filing an appeal, the defense has 30 days before the sentence comes into force. Lawyer Alexandrova Valentin Rybin said that the decision on the appeal will be made after the defense receives the text of the court decision.

Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev were detained on May 16 in the Luhansk region, near the town of Happiness. The arrest was preceded by a shootout, during which one Ukrainian soldier died, and both Russians were injured and hospitalized.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine claims that Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev are active servicemen of the GRU special forces. The Russian Ministry of Defense states that both resigned from military service long before they entered the Donbass.

March 22 Russian court sentenced Ukrainian female pilot Nadezhda Savchenko to 22 years in prison on the murder of Russian journalists in the Luhansk region.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko declared readiness exchange Savchenko on two Russian servicemen detained on the territory of Ukraine. Poroshenko did not name names, but it was obvious that we were talking about Erofeev and Aleksandrov.

After Savchenko’s verdict was announced by the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov, the decision to exchange the Ukrainian soldier convicted in Russia will be taken personally by Vladimir Putin.

According to BBC Ukraine, employees of the Russian Embassy in Ukraine, as well as Nadezhda Savchenko’s sister Vera and the pilot’s Russian lawyer Ilya Novikov, came to the announcement of the verdict against Erofeev and Aleksandrov in Kiev.

The lawyer has repeatedly stated that Savchenko can be exchanged for two Russians only after the verdict in their case enters into legal force, but Novikov said that there was no time to wait for 30 days yet. Previously, Savchenko’s advocates claimed that she was in extremely difficult condition due to prolonged hunger strike.

“I hope that my Ukrainian colleagues and I will discuss possible coordination of defense actions in both cases so that our clients can be exchanged for each other as soon as possible, if such a decision is made by the authorities of Russia and Ukraine,” said Ilya Novikov.

Both citizens of Russia, being in the dock, denied their guilt on all charges. Alexander Alexandrov refused the last word, and Yevgeny Yerofeyev announced the political component of the case.