Andrey Antonenko

A lieutenant colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, originally from Ukraine. In 2025, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison in a case involving a 'sabotage and reconnaissance group'.

In 2025, the 2nd Western District Military Court in Russia considered the case of four Ukrainian servicemen accused of organising and carrying out acts of sabotage on Russian territory. The investigation charged them with blowing up railway tracks, power lines, and oil depots, as well as conducting reconnaissance near a military airfield. The defence argued that the accused were active military personnel and therefore should be considered prisoners of war rather than terrorists. Despite these arguments, all defendants were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in strict-regime penal colonies – from 26 to 28 years.

2020s

Reading time: 4 minutes

The Final Statement

‘I do not consider myself a terrorist and I do not agree with the charges brought against me. I do not know how my future and my life will unfold, but I have this deep personal feeling that, after all, this is more of a cosplay of justice.’

Your Honour, respected participants in the proceedings, respected attendees. My name is Andrey Antonenko.

I am a citizen of Ukraine, I am Ukrainian, and I am an active serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I say this in order to explain my actions during the military conflict that occurred between our countries. That is precisely why, guided both by my patriotic beliefs and my military duty, I carried out a special assignment on the territory of the Russian Federation in order to prevent strikes against the territory of my own country.

With sorrow, I want to say that I regret that not all members of my group survived. Some of them died, namely Oleh Babiy and Andrey Machulianskyi, and Iliya Dolmatov passed away in hospital. These are worthy people. I am sorry that they died, but such a fate awaits, perhaps… Such a situation can happen to any serviceman on the battlefield.

I do not consider myself a terrorist and I do not agree with the charges brought against me. I do not know how my future and my life will unfold, but I have this deep personal feeling that, after all, this is more of a cosplay of justice. However, perhaps everything will change in the future, when relations between the two countries and the two peoples are normalised.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to the medical personnel who provided my treatment, especially the staff of the Navlya Central District Hospital. According to what I understand, in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath, without prejudice they…

The defendant is interrupted by Judge Yuriy Massin.

Judge Massin. Mr. Antonenko, I am stopping your final statement. I am additionally explaining to you, in case your defence lawyer has not clarified this to you, that your final statement must directly concern the circumstances examined during the court proceedings and the circumstances of the criminal case under consideration. At this point, you are speaking about the actions of other persons, on other grounds and under other circumstances. For this reason, I have stopped you… Please continue, but in relation to the criminal case being considered.

Antonenko recites a quatrain by Ukrainian poet Pavlo Tychyna.
‘I am a people whose strength of Truth
Has never yet been conquered by anyone.
What disaster, what plague has struck me! –
Yet my strength has blossomed again…’

Thank you, that is all.

Massin. Mr. Antonenko, since the proceedings are being conducted in Russian, you previously stated that you agreed to participate in the court hearing without an interpreter… Or will you translate it for us now, or we will suspend the court hearing, appoint an interpreter, and then continue. Do you insist on participating, on continuing the court proceedings in your native language?

Antonenko. No, I do not insist.

Massin. Please, then tell us what you said there…

Antonenko. It was an excerpt from a work, from a poem – well, that is all.

Massin. And what is the poem about? Not everyone is familiar with your native language. Mr. Antonenko?

Antonenko. Yes?

Massin. What is the poem about? What did you just recite?

Antonenko. I do not know.

Massin. You just recited a poem in Ukrainian, didn’t you?..

Antonenko. Well, yes.

Massin. So what is it about?

Antonenko. About a deep love for one’s country.

Massin. I see. Please sit down.

13 August 2025.
2nd Western District Military Court, Moscow, Russia.

Source: ‘Mediazona‘.
More about the case: ‘Mediazona‘.
Photo: Alexey Potitsky / TASS.