Oleg Zharkov

A general labourer who 'performed maintenance, repair, and construction work'. He was sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony.

The case originally involved 24 defendants. All of them had served in the Azov Brigade at different times and in different positions. Many had never held a weapon in their hands or had left military service long before the full-scale war began. All were charged with the violent seizure of power (Article 278 in conjunction with Part 4 of Article 35 of the Russian Criminal Code) and organising the activities of a terrorist organisation (Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code). Some of the defendants were additionally charged with undergoing training for terrorist activities (Article 205.3 of the Russian Criminal Code). The prosecution requested prison sentences ranging from 16 to 24 years, with all male defendants to serve their terms in maximum-security penal colonies. Two Ukrainian servicemen–Davyd Kasatkin and Dmytro Labinskyi–were exchanged before the trial began, while Oleksandr Ishchenko died in pre-trial detention. In September, nine Ukrainian women who had served in the Azov Brigade–eight cooks and one storekeeper–returned home in a prisoner exchange. Those defendants who were exchanged continue to be tried in absentia in Russia.

2020s

Reading time: 7 minutes

The Final Statement

‘All the civilian personnel at the military unit where I worked are in Ukraine. Thank God, they all underwent screening: two people were detained, but all of them were later released. When I told the investigator about this, he shook his head and said, ‘You know, bro, there are no innocent people. If you’re still free, it’s not because of your own merit–it’s because we haven’t done our job well enough.”

There is an old Soviet film called ‘Officers’. It’s in black and white, and one of the leading roles was played by Vasily Lanovoy. He has a famous line: ‘Yes, brother, there is such a profession–to defend the Motherland.’

Among us here are four people who defended their Motherland. They are servicemen who remained faithful to their duty and their oath. I am grateful to them because, thanks to them and thousands of others who went to defend their country, my wife, with whom I have lived for 30 years, and my child, who has turned 12, will have the opportunity to return home.

And my child will be able to go back to the school where they studied before the war. The flag of Ukraine will fly over that school, and the national anthem will be played, beginning with the words ‘Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy…’. I am very happy that this will happen, and I have no doubt that it will.

Another category, who, thank God, are not here but are being tried, consists of our girls–our cooks. I can say that during all the time I worked with them, I never once saw them holding weapons or wearing military uniforms. Here they have already tried to force the facts to fit the narrative by bringing up the Nuremberg trials. But I also tried to remember where female cooks had ever been prosecuted for overthrowing the government. Well, congratulations on being the first.

Another category of defendants being tried here includes former servicemen such as Aleksandr Mukhin, who was genuinely responsible for guarding facilities, or Yarik Zhdamarov, who was a dog handler whose duties consisted of feeding dogs and training them to bark properly… And for this they, too, are accused of being terrorists, fascists, Nazis. It’s really something else, you know…

Exactly eight months ago, we were transferred from Detention Centre No. 1 to Detention Centre No. 5. We were assigned to our cells, and while we were unpacking our belongings, five more people were placed in our cell. We immediately realised they were on the other side because they entered the cell according to prison traditions.

They immediately introduced themselves, explained who they were, told us their names, and what they had been imprisoned for. It turned out that one was serving time for rape–while being a serviceman–another for looting, and the third, as he himself put it, for ‘putting two civilian rams to sleep forever’. To translate that from Russian into plain language, he had shot and killed two peaceful Ukrainian civilians. The others also had equally cheerful charges… I don’t even want to talk about them anymore. They soon realised they had been placed in a cell with Ukrainian civilians and immediately demanded to be moved, banging on the door… But that’s another story, as Leonid Kanevsky would say.

I want to return to my point: Russian servicemen who committed looting, violence, and the murder of civilians–the very things for which we are also being prosecuted–does that mean they, too, are fascists, according to the theory of the expert whom the respected prosecutor summoned here? Then it all turns into nonsense: they are fascists too, and they served in a fascist army. So fascists are trying fascists for fascism–there you have it!

Another category of defendants consists of just a few people who served in 2015 and took part in the ATO, the Anti-Terrorist Operation. The Russian army also took part in an anti-terrorist operation–only theirs was in the Chechen Republic, in the city of Grozny. Ours was certainly a much lighter version. Let’s be honest: had it not been for people like Igor Ivanovich Girkin, also known as Strelkov, and other Che Guevara imitators… Yes, we also have our useful idiots and politicians who sold themselves for 30 pieces of silver…

The judge demands that Zharkov ‘use more appropriate language’.

Excuse me, Your Honour, I am neither a philologist nor a linguist, and I didn’t make up those words. If you open the books of Varlam Shalamov or those of Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, you will find them there. These words are also widely used in the works of Vladimir Medinsky, who served as Russia’s Minister of Culture. He is now Chairman of the Union of Writers of Russia and also an aide to the President of the Russian Federation. I believe that settles the matter. I never intended to offend anyone, so please forgive me once again.

Yes, these people took part in the ATO and tried to overcome the separatism that, from time to time, occurs in every country. There was once a Russian politician who said that people who, with weapons in their hands and through violence, attempt to change a country’s constitutional order and violate its state borders are separatists. He proposed applying the harshest possible measures against them. That politician’s name was Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin.

Another politician, no less famous, went even further, saying they were not merely separatists but terrorists, and proposed ‘wasting them in the outhouse’. We won’t mention the name of that politician–these days, people prefer not to speak it aloud.

Patriarch Kirill, who, incidentally, is not a politician but is, let’s say, the spiritual leader of many Orthodox believers, has also repeatedly stated in his speeches that, in the 21st century, any changes within a state should take place without the use of brute physical force, and that kindness should become the weapon instead. On this point, I completely agree with these great men.

The last category is your humble servant. I never served in the Ukrainian army at all–I served in the Soviet army more than 30 years ago. It is no great secret that every military unit employs not only servicemen but also electricians, plumbers, cleaners, laundry workers, and general labourers–people like me. All the civilian personnel at the military unit where I worked are in Ukraine. Thank God, they all underwent screening: two people were detained, but all of them were later released. When I told the investigator about this, he shook his head and said, ‘You know, bro, there are no innocent people. If you’re still free, it’s not because of your own merit–it’s because we haven’t done our job well enough.’

So they simply rounded people up off the streets. As the saying goes, if there’s a person, there’ll always be a charge to fit. I’m not even talking about the sentence they’ll give me–10, 20, or 30 years–to me, it’s all a death sentence anyway… Every one of us, and all of us together, are hoping for a prisoner exchange, hoping that our country will bring us home.

19 March 2025
Southern District Military Court, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Source: Mediazona
More about the case: Memorial
Photo: Aleksandra Astakhova / Mediazona