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Sergey Yakovlev, who is accused of preparing a terrorist attack, told the court that after his arrest, FSB officers tortured him for three days and then forced him to assemble a bomb for an operational video shoot. This was reported by Mediazona from the courtroom of the 2nd Western District Military Court.
According to Yakovlev, in spring 2024, the emigrant politician Vyacheslav Maltsev, leader of the “Artpodgotovka” movement, asked him to pick up a package from a hiding place in Gomel, a city in Belarus. The man did not know what was inside and assumed it was some equipment. In summer, he took the package to Orenburg, a city in the southern Urals, and left it in a cache.
In court, Yakovlev also said that he had planned to set fire to facilities belonging to the oil and gas sector in order to “deal a financial blow to the current regime.” However, he did not carry out these plans.
Later, Yakovlev wanted to go to Kazakhstan but did not manage to—he was apprehended by FSB officers. According to the man, security forces tortured him for three days and forced him to testify that the package contained a homemade explosive device. After this, he showed them the cache, but the package was no longer there.
Yakovlev claims that FSB officers then brought a bomb and forced him to repair it. The man said the officers threatened to arrest his wife and mother if he refused. He was unable to repair the device. The FSB officers then asked Yakovlev which components he needed, brought them, and he assembled the electronic part of the bomb.
Afterwards, according to the man, the security forces recorded a video showing him assembling the explosive device and throwing it onto a train. Yakovlev also said that the officers used his phone to lure his acquaintance, Vladimir Drofa, to a meeting, where Drofa was subsequently detained. Yakovlev’s wife, Anna Radionova, also became a suspect in the criminal case.
In total, eight people have been charged with preparing a terrorist attack (Part 1, Article 30 and point “a” of Part 2, Article 205 of the Criminal Code). Investigators consider them supporters of Maltsev and members of the “Artpodgotovka” movement. The FSB claims they intended to drop a bomb from a bridge onto a military train in the Orenburg region.
Previously, another defendant in the case, Russian Railways employee Yuri Martyanov, also reported being tortured after his arrest. Another person involved, Alexei Demchenko, said that security forces beat him and broke his rib.