The defendant in the “Artpodgotovka” case spoke about being tortured after their arrest.

Igor Sharnev, the defendant in the “Artpodgotovka” case, told the court that after his arrest, FSB officers tortured him for several hours. Mediazona reports from the 2nd Western District Military Court.

According to Sharnev, in May 2024, the leader of “Artpodgotovka,” Vyacheslav Maltsev, asked him to go to Gomel and pick up Sergei Yakovlev, who later also became a defendant in the case. On the way, Yakovlev took a black bag from the forest and put it in the boot of the car. Sharnev claims he did not know what was inside. In June, at Maltsev’s request, he also took another person to Minsk airport and filmed the Novosokolniki railway station.

Sharnev was detained on 4 July that year, on his way to his dacha (country house). He says that FSB officers forced him to the floor of a minivan, beat him with stun guns and kicked him, twisted his joints, and then continued the torture at the station. There, as the man described, they put a bag over his head and kicked him in the teeth with a boot three times. Sharnev estimates that the violence lasted about seven hours.

Later, his civil partner and fellow defendant in the same case, Svetlana Malakhova, was brought to the station. Sharnev claims the security officers threatened to torture her too, after which he signed the statements given to him by an FSB officer.

On 6 July, Sharnev was taken to Orenburg, a major city in the southern Urals. He says that there, FSB officers made it clear he must “say everything correctly,” and then took him for questioning at the Investigative Committee. While in the detention centre, Sharnev was at first refused admission without a health certificate, so he was taken to a hospital where a doctor stated he had no injuries.

In 2022, the Velikiye Luki City Court sentenced Sharnev to one and a half years on probation for publicly calling for extremism (part 2 of article 280 of the Criminal Code). After that, he was included in Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists and extremists.

• A total of eight people are charged in the case of preparing a terrorist attack (part 1 of article 30, subparagraph “a” of part 2 of article 205 of the Criminal Code), all considered by investigators to be supporters of Maltsev and participants in “Artpodgotovka.” According to the FSB, they allegedly planned to drop a bomb from a bridge onto a military train in Orenburg region. Maltsev is on the international wanted list and has been arrested in absentia.
• Previously, another defendant in the case, Sergei Yakovlev, said that after his arrest, FSB officers tortured him for three days and then forced him to assemble a bomb for an operational video. Defendants Yuri Martyanov and Alexei Demchenko also reported being tortured in connection with the case.