Nikita Timonin

A rifleman-grenadier. He was sentenced to 22 years in a penal colony. The case originally involved 24 defendants. All of them served in 'Azov' at different times and in different positions. Many had never held a weapon or had left the military long before the start of the war.

All of them are accused of the violent seizure of state power (Part 4 of Article 35 and Article 278 of the Criminal Code) and organising the activities of a terrorist organisation (Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code). Some of the defendants are also charged with undergoing training for terrorist activities (Article 205.3 of the Criminal Code). The prosecution sought prison sentences ranging from 16 to 24 years for the defendants, with all men to serve their sentences in strict-regime penal colonies. Two Ukrainian servicemen–David Kasatkin and Dmitro Labynskiy–were exchanged before the trial began; Oleksandr Ishchenko died in a pre-trial detention centre. In September, nine Ukrainian women who had served in 'Azov'–eight cooks and one storekeeper–returned home as part of a prisoner exchange. Those defendants who were included in exchanges continue to be tried in absentia in Russia.

2020s

Reading time: 6 minutes

The Final Statement

‘I saw bags over people’s heads, wires attached to different parts of their bodies, broken ribs, damaged kidneys, people beaten to death, hunger lasting for more than a year, no medical assistance whatsoever, people rotting, legs, arms, lice, bedbugs, two showers in a year–and after those showers we left dirtier than when we arrived, and beaten as well.’

A lot has been said here about us being fascists, Nazis, terrorists, Ukrainian Nazis, Banderites, and so on. I would like to draw a small analogy. On 22 June 1941, at four in the morning, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and on 24 February 2022, all of Ukraine woke up to the explosions of Russian missiles. It was not Ukraine that attacked Russia, it was not us who came with weapons into someone else’s country.

We defended our land, our cities. The Russian army came to the city of Mariupol on tanks and armoured personnel carriers, aircraft arrived, ships sailed in. Russian shells fell on Ukrainian cities, we defended our land, and now we are being tried for overthrowing the government–it seems unfair to me.

I wanted to tell a small story about Olenivka during the closing arguments. In the colony where we were held, for reasons that are unclear–it was precisely during the period when I was taken prisoner on 11 April and the case began on 5 May–during that period I was in Olenivka, as were many of the female cooks. They asked there why we were guilty and why they wanted to put us on trial. And the staff told them: you are guilty because you should have poisoned all of them in the canteen, and then perhaps there would not have been a war. At the same time, we are supposedly the terrorists.

The prosecutor presented a lot of evidence: some unclear information from YouTube channels, stories from some defector from the Security Service of Ukraine–how can such people be trusted?

You also have many statements from local residents of Mariupol: brutal crimes, violence, looting, destruction of homes… But none of these statements mentioned any of the defendants who are currently present here.

I would also like to say a little about the alleged discrimination against the Russian language. I spent my whole life doing sports, travelling all over Ukraine for various competitions and tournaments. I studied at an Olympic reserve school, where athletes from all over Ukraine were gathered–and nobody was prohibited from speaking Russian. We travelled to Lviv, played basketball, spoke Russian–people sold us pastries, pies, ice cream… I have simply heard a lot–we have already been moving between prisons and pre-trial detention centres for three years–that someone in Lviv was not sold ice cream by some guard, someone was not sold a pie… I do not know, it sounds like some kind of fantasy; it did not happen: everyone communicated freely in Russian, and whoever wanted could speak Ukrainian. If you wanted–speak Polish, if you wanted–Czech, whatever language you wanted, you could speak it.

You also have our phones, which clearly show what language we communicated in. All correspondence, all conversations on the phones–all of it is in Russian, as are the social networks. You visited our bases and military units, and there is also plenty of evidence there that quite a lot of people communicated in Russian and nobody discriminated against anyone.

I am also charged with training for terrorist acts. All of us were trained in the use of standard small arms, medical training, and tactics–essentially, I believe, nothing different from what soldiers are taught in the Russian army or some European army. It is all the same.

A lot has also been said about terrorism. I would like to mention a few facts that are not known to everyone. For example, the strike on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv with missiles–children with severe illnesses were receiving cancer treatment there. The missile was not Ukrainian; it was the well-known ‘Iskander’. Many kindergartens, schools, and hospitals were also destroyed. I think that sitting here in Rostov, you do not fully feel that a war is taking place between Russia and Ukraine, whereas in Ukraine people do feel it: many people are dying, including children. Many families have been forced to leave abroad because they are simply worried about their own health and the health of their children.

‘Russia only strikes military targets all the time’–that is what we keep hearing. I am from the small town of Lozova in Kharkiv Oblast, and a so-called military target there was destroyed–the town’s Palace of Culture. The Sports Palace in Kharkiv, the Historical Museum in Kharkiv, Barabashovo Market in Kharkiv, the Ocean Plaza shopping centre in Kyiv… I could go on for a long time–these are all military targets, there are Nazis, fascists, terrorists, and so on there.

It has been said here many times that our direct commander was sentenced to 24 years, but, as Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Mukhin already said, he was not charged with overthrowing the government. It would be interesting to see how we could have overthrown the government without his knowledge–by stealing pies at a market?

Also regarding terrorism and atrocities by the Ukrainian army. As they say, every family has its black sheep. There are different kinds of people everywhere; there are no bad nations–much can be said about this, but what I saw… I saw bags over people’s heads, wires attached to different parts of their bodies, broken ribs, damaged kidneys, people beaten to death, hunger lasting for more than a year, no medical assistance whatsoever, people rotting, legs, arms, lice, bedbugs, two showers in a year–and after those showers we left dirtier than when we arrived, and beaten as well.

We are not given the opportunity to communicate with our relatives and loved ones. Even now, we send letters, but they do not reach them and disappear somewhere. This is all a deception of the system. And by the way, on 12 March Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin stated that Russia treats all military personnel who fall into its hands humanely, and that the Geneva Convention would not apply only to foreign mercenaries–this is a quote from 12 March 2025. If Vladimir Putin is not an authority for the respected prosecutor, then I do not know what to say. That is all.

19 March 2025.
Southern District Military Court, Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

Source: ‘Mediazona‘.
More details about the case: ‘Memorial‘.
Photo: Aleksandra Astakhova / Mediazona.