A business school lecturer has been sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony over a case involving drone strikes on Kursk, a city in western Russia.

The 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow has sentenced Eldar Marchenko, a 52-year-old RMA business school lecturer and former columnist for Vot Tak, to 16 years in prison over a case concerning a terrorist act committed by a group and resulting in significant damage (subparagraphs a and v, part 2, article 205 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by Mediazona.

Marchenko is to spend the first five years of his sentence in prison, with the remainder in a strict regime penal colony. He has also been given an additional one and a half years' restriction of freedom following completion of his main sentence, OVD-Info heard from a listener in the courtroom.

On 11 August, during closing arguments, the prosecutor had requested a 19-year sentence for Marchenko, with the first six years to be served in prison.

“In the current historical situation, I find terrorism pointless. What is the aim of terror? Terror is directed against the civilian population, but the real target is the authorities. Responsible citizens who care about their country’s welfare can see that the government is unable to guarantee their safety, and so they change or attempt to change such a government,” Marchenko said in his final statement in court.

According to the prosecution, Marchenko “for the purpose of destabilising the Russian authorities” joined an organised group created by Ukrainian security officers and military personnel. On 26 August 2023, he travelled from Moscow to Kursk—a city in western Russia—and the next day passed the coordinates of the local airport to his handlers. As a result, at least two drones were launched from Ukrainian territory towards Kursk; these “did not hit their intended target due to reasons beyond the group’s control,” but did damage at least eight flats, an administrative building belonging to an educational institution, and two cars.

The regional authorities at the time reported that a drone crashed into a residential building and that the blast wave shattered windows in a building of the Kursk State Agricultural University. No one was injured in the incident.

In court, the prosecutor stated that it is only possible to record the data of an airport or railway station by being present at the site. As further evidence, she also referred to previous instances where Marchenko had been sanctioned for participating in protests and for “offensive comments under a photograph of the president.”

Marchenko did not plead guilty. “No one saw him in Kursk when the drones struck,” his lawyer Alexander Aladyev said during closing arguments. As reported by SOTAvision, the lawyer also noted that no evidence of interaction with foreign intelligence services was found on his client’s phone, and the case file did not contain the crime instrument. The lawyer argued that the drones that appeared in Kursk on 27 August 2023 were reconnaissance drones, as they carried few destructive elements.

In his court statement, Marchenko said that FSB officers had promised him a long prison sentence.

Marchenko was detained in Moscow on 1 August 2024. According to SOTA, citing its sources, he confessed under torture. First, FSB officers searched Marchenko’s home without showing any documents, then took him for interrogation at Lubyanka. En route, he was tortured with electric shocks to force him to “confess to working for Ukrainian intelligence services.”

On the day of his arrest, no criminal charges were initially brought against Marchenko. Instead, he was subjected to “carousel arrests”: he was arrested three times in a row on administrative charges of petty hooliganism (article 20.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences). Twice he received 15-day sentences, and a third time—10 days. Only after completing the third administrative sentence was he detained under the criminal case. On 12 September, he was transferred to a pre-trial detention centre.

During closing arguments, the prosecutor claimed that on 1 August 2024 Marchenko gave testimony voluntarily and admitted guilt even before he was in the officers’ car. The lawyer pointed out, however, that a member of the Public Monitoring Commission had confirmed the presence of burns on Marchenko’s hands.

Before his detention, Marchenko taught sports management at the RMA business school. In 2022 he wrote several columns for Vot Tak (these are no longer publicly available). He was also married to the editor-in-chief of Port.