Mykyta Timonin

A gunner–grenade launcher operator. He was sentenced to 22 years in a penal colony.

The case originally involved 24 defendants. All of them had served in Azov at different times and in different roles. Many had never handled weapons or had left the military long before the war began. All are charged with the violent seizure of power (Part 4 of Article 35 and Article 278 of the Criminal Code) and with organizing the activities of a terrorist organization (Part 1 of Article 205.5). Some of the defendants are also accused of undergoing training for terrorist activity (Article 205.3). The prosecution requested sentences ranging from 16 to 24 years in prison, and all men are to serve their terms in high-security colonies. Two Ukrainian servicemen, Davyd Kasatkin and Dmytro Labynsky, were exchanged before the trial started. Oleksandr Ishchenko died in pre-trial detention. In September, nine Ukrainian women who had served in Azov, including eight cooks and a supply clerk, returned home in a prisoner exchange. Those defendants who were exchanged continue to be tried in absentia in Russia.

2020s

Cases of justifying terrorism Cases of terrorism

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The final statement

‘I saw bags over people’s heads. Wires on their limbs. Broken ribs. Damaged kidneys. People beaten to death. Starvation for over a year. No medical help. People rotting alive—their arms, their legs. Lice and bedbugs. Two showers a year that we were allowed to, and after each one, we came out filthier than before. And beaten as well.’

Much has been said here that we are fascists, Nazis, terrorists, Ukrainian Nazis, Banderites, and so on. Let me draw a brief analogy. On 22 June 1941, at four in the morning, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. On 24 February 2022, all of Ukraine woke up to the sound of Russian missile strikes. It was not Ukraine that attacked Russia. We did not arrive in someone else’s country with weapons in our hands.

We were defending our land, our homes, our cities. It was the Russian army that came to Mariupol in tanks, armored vehicles, with aircraft and warships. Russian shells rained down on Ukrainian towns. We were defending our homeland. And now we’re being tried for ‘attempting to overthrow the government’? That doesn’t feel like justice.

I wanted to share a short story from Olenivka during the hearings. In the colony where we were held, for reasons unclear, between my capture on 11 April and the opening of my case on 5 May, I was at Olenivka along with many women who worked as cooks. They kept asking: ‘What are we guilty of? What are they trying us for?’ And the guards would reply: ‘You’re guilty because you should’ve poisoned them all in the dining hall. Maybe then there wouldn’t have been a war.’ And yet somehow we’re the ones labeled as terrorists.

The prosecutor presented a lot of so-called evidence: strange material from YouTube channels, tall tales from a defector from the Ukrainian Security Service. How can such people be trusted?

You’ve also heard many testimonies from Mariupol residents about brutal crimes, violence, looting, destruction of homes. Yet not one of those statements mentions any of the defendants sitting here today.

I also wanted to say a few words about the alleged suppression of the Russian language. I’ve been an athlete all my life and traveled all over Ukraine for competitions and tournaments. I attended the Olympic Reserve School, which gathered athletes from across the country; no one was ever forbidden to speak Russian. We went to Lviv, played basketball, and spoke Russian. We bought cakes, pastries, ice cream, all in Russian. I’ve heard so many bizarre stories during the three years we’ve been moved from prison to prison, about how some patrol officer in Lviv supposedly wasn’t sold ice cream because they spoke Russian, or how someone else was refused a bun. I don’t know, it sounds like fantasy to me. That never happened. Everyone spoke freely, in Russian if they wanted, or in Ukrainian. You could speak Polish or Czech or anything else, and no one minded.

Even the phones you’ve confiscated show this. All our messages and conversations were in Russian, including on social media. You’ve seen our bases and military units. There is plenty of proof that most people spoke Russian there, and no one was discriminated against for it.

I’m also accused of being ‘trained for terrorist acts.’ All of us were trained in handling basic service weapons, received basic medical training, and learned tactical skills. I don’t think we learned anything that isn’t taught in the Russian army or in any European army.

There has been a lot said about terrorism. I’d like to share a few facts that not everyone may know. For example, the missile strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, a place where severely ill children receive cancer treatment. The missile wasn’t Ukrainian. It was a well-known Russian Iskander. Many kindergartens, schools, and hospitals have also been destroyed. Maybe in Rostov it doesn’t feel like a war is going on between Russia and Ukraine, but in Ukraine it does. People are dying. Children are dying. Many families were forced to flee abroad simply because they feared for their own lives and the lives of their children.

‘Russia only strikes military targets’—that’s what we keep hearing. Really? I’m from a small town, Lozova in Kharkiv region. There, the ‘military targets’ included the local Cultural Center. The Sports Palace in Kharkiv, the Historical Museum in Kharkiv, the Barabashovo Market in Kharkiv, the Ocean Plaza shopping mall in Kyiv. I could go on. Apparently all those places were full of ‘Nazis,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘terrorists.’

It was mentioned many times here that our direct commander was sentenced to 24 years. But even he wasn’t charged with ‘overthrowing the government,’ as Oleksandr Mukhin already pointed out. I would love to know how we were supposedly planning to overthrow the government without his knowledge. By stealing pastries at the market?

As for the supposed terrorism and atrocities committed by the Ukrainian military: as the saying goes, every family has its black sheep. People are different everywhere; there are no bad nations. A lot can be said, but what I saw here…

I saw bags over people’s heads. Wires on their limbs. Broken ribs. Damaged kidneys. People beaten to death. Starvation for more than a year. No medical help. People rotting alive, their arms and their legs. Lice and bedbugs. We were allowed only two showers a year, and after each one we came out filthier than before. And beaten as well.

We are not allowed to communicate with our relatives and loved ones. Even now we try to send letters, but they get lost somewhere. They never arrive. It is all part of the system, this lie. By the way, on 12 March 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia treats captured soldiers humanely. He added that the Geneva Conventions would not apply only to foreign mercenaries. That is a direct quote, 12 March 2025. If Vladimir Putin is not an authority to the respected prosecutor, then I don’t know what else to say. That’s all from me.

Southern District Military Court, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

19 March 2025

Source: Mediazona

More about the case: Memorial

Photo: Alexandra Astakhova/Memorial