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On 28 July, the 2nd Western District Military Court sentenced five young people from Moscow and the Moscow region to prison terms of up to 19 years on charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation and attempting to set fire to military equipment in Balashikha, OVD-Info was told by a friend of one of the defendants. According to him, the case was the result of an FSB agent’s provocation.
Anton Khripko, aged 21, received 19 years in prison, with the first four years to be served in jail and the remaining time in a strict-regime penal colony. Sergey Korkhov, 23, as well as Ilya Korkach and Ivan Silin, both 22, were each sentenced to 16 years in prison, with the first three years to be served in jail. The underage defendant was sentenced to four years in a penal colony.
Khripko was charged with creating a terrorist organisation (Part 1, Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code), assisting terrorism (Part 4, Article 205.1), and involving a minor in criminal activity (Part 4, Article 150). The other defendants were charged with participation in a terrorist organisation (Part 2, Article 205.4) and undergoing training for carrying out terrorist activities (Article 205.3).
None of the defendants pleaded guilty.
Investigators called the young people supporters of far-right extremist ideology, claiming they held “radically negative views on the current political situation in the Russian Federation.”
The indictment directly states that, at the end of 2021, the FSB planted its agent, Aleksandr Nemchikov, in the circle of one of the defendants, Korkhov. Nemchikov was to pose as someone with far-right views, who had previously served in special military units and had combat experience. A year before the agent’s infiltration, Korkhov had been detained at the “Russian March” and fined for participating in an unauthorised rally (Part 6, Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code).
Investigators named Khripko as the leader of the group. According to their version, after the invasion of Ukraine began, the young man—who considered himself ethnically Ukrainian and opposed the war—created a terrorist organisation that included the other defendants. At the time, Khripko was a college student, while Silin and Korkach were studying at the Law Faculty of the All-Russian State University of Justice, specialising in the field of judicial and prosecutorial activity. Korkhov graduated from college in 2022 and was conscripted for military service. The minor defendant was 15 at the time and was studying at a Moscow school.
The indictment said the group exercised together at sports grounds, learned hand-to-hand combat and how to handle knives. Investigators also claimed that from June 2022 to February 2023, the accused visited abandoned sites several times to practise throwing Molotov cocktails, handling a Makarov pistol and a Kalashnikov, and conducting combat operations. In all of these activities, Nemchikov, the FSB agent, was present.
According to the case files, Khripko asked Korkhov to bring Nemchikov into the group so they could use his military and combat experience to learn to handle weapons and take part in combat, and that Korkhov allegedly invited the FSB agent on the outing to practise throwing Molotov cocktails.
A government order indicting Khripko states that on the night of 15 March 2023, he set fire to a transformer substation on the railway in Balashikha. Prior to this, he discussed the arson with Nemchikov and allegedly invited him to take part. As a result, the FSB agent did accompany him to the substation.
Afterwards, investigators claim, Khripko decided to set fire to military equipment at a military base in Balashikha. According to official statements, he “for security reasons” informed only Nemchikov. On 8 May 2023, Khripko bought petrol and a shovel to dig under the base’s fence and met with Nemchikov. That same evening, as they were approaching the site, they were detained by FSB officers.
According to a friend of one of the convicted, the FSB agent provoked conversations on “terrorist” topics: he suggested the young people look for sponsors in Ukraine, discussed possible terrorist attacks, and criticised the authorities and the invasion of Ukraine. All these conversations were recorded.
The source told OVD-Info that the Molotov cocktail training in an abandoned building was instigated by Nemchikov, who made audio and video recordings. He then showed Silin, Korkach, and the underage defendant a pistol, claiming it had been brought from Ukraine as a trophy, and offered to teach them how to handle weapons. The young people agreed and subsequently met with the FSB agent several more times, practising the weapons handling techniques he had demonstrated.
According to the source, by December 2022 most of the defendants had stopped communicating with the FSB agent and, eventually, with each other. Even before his arrest, Korkhov had said that Nemchikov was initiating odd, radical conversations, and had therefore stopped speaking to him.
The FSB agent spent months persuading Khripko to set fire to military equipment at the base in Balashikha, the source added.
He also said that during interrogation, the defendants were subjected to psychological pressure, and that while being transported from the pre-trial detention centre to the military investigation department, they experienced psychological and physical coercion.
In March 2025, Ivan Khripko, aged 24, the elder brother of Anton Khripko, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for arson attacks on railways in Yaroslavl, a city north-east of Moscow. He was found guilty of state treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code), attempted sabotage (points “a” and “v,” Part 2, Article 281, with the application of Part 3, Article 30), training in sabotage activities (Article 281.2), and unlawful manufacture of explosives (Part 1, Article 223.1). According to security services, he was acting “on the instructions of Ukrainian intelligence services.” Ivan was detained in December 2023, seven months after the arrest of his younger brother in the terrorist organisation case.