Russia jails citizen over alleged sabotage plans on Freedom of Russia Legion's behalf
A Russian military court sentenced a Krasnodar Krai resident to 14 years in prison for allegedly preparing to sabotage railway relay cabinets and for purported links with an anti-Kremlin militia, the court's service said on July 30.
The court called Artem Sanzharaev a "convinced ideological opponent of the state" who "voluntarily joined" the Freedom of Russia Legion through Telegram.
The legion, established in March 2022 in Ukraine, is an armed group made up of ethnic Russians fighting alongside Kyiv's forces against Russia.
Its members have also carried out cross-border raids into Russia and reportedly conducted sabotage operations inside the country.
According to the Russian court, Sanzharaev was instructed by the legion to carry out the sabotage. For that purpose, he "acquired the necessary weapons and equipment, after which he arrived at the indicated relay cabinets and began making Molotov cocktails," the court said.
Sanzharaev did not manage to carry out his tasks as he was detained by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) officers, the statement read.
The Kyiv Independent cannot verify this information, and the Russian judicial system is widely thought to be systematically unfair. Torture and forced confessions are also commonplace practices among law enforcement officers, human rights organizations have found.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on dissent since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has seen thousands of his citizens arrested and many jailed.
