Alexy Rozhkov sentenced to 16 years, Ruslan Sidiki faces life imprisonment for political ‘terrorism’ charges
~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~
In the military court of Yekaterinburg, Alexy Rozhkov was sentenced to 16 years yesterday (May 20th) for setting fire to a military enlistment office. Also yesterday in Ryazan military court, Ruslan Sidiki took the stand in his own trial, accused of destroying railway tracks, leading to the derailment of nineteen carriages of fertiliser. Arrested in November 2023, Sidiki is also accused of the attempted destruction of military aircraft, on both occasions using remotely operated GPS guided drones.
Both anarchists admit to the acts they are responsible for, but deny the political charge of terrorism.
Rozhkov was initially accused of “damage to property” after the authorities unsuccessfully tried to charge him for “attempted murder” of a security guard within the enlistment office. After fleeing Russia to Kyrgyzstan, he was kidnapped by the security services and deported back to Russia.
“I just understood that one cannot remain indifferent”, Rozhkov said in an interview with DOXA shortly before his arrest and illegal deportation. “What is happening now is illegitimate, it is illegal. Any war is death for ordinary citizens”. He was the third person in Russia to set fire to an enlistment office following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022.
Sidiki, for his part, says he did not see any other means of resistance except direct action. The destruction of railway infrastructure to stop the movement of explosives towards the border with Ukraine was planned to ensure that humans would not be harmed in the damaging of military infrastructure.
“I plead guilty in part” Sidiki told the court. “I do not recognise the fact of training terrorist activities, I had the skills before. I do not recognise the qualifications(of terrorism), since the goal was sabotage, not the intimidation of the population. I don’t recognise the preparation of the (third) explosion. The components found in my house are chemicals, as I was fond of agrochemistry and crop production”.
Acts of sabotage against the railway in Russia are more common with record numbers of arson actions against railway infrastructure recorded in 2024. A large amount of those who are caught and sentenced are young adults or teenagers. 16-year-old Pavel Khazov was sentenced to nine years, and 17-year-old Space Nevolainen, six years in prison, as their names were added to a list of ‘terrorists’ for setting fire to an empty train cab.
Mediazona reported the cases of thirteen minors charged for setting fire to relay boxes for the railway, or military equipment. Some reported that they were paid to do so by an anonymous person. Pavel reported that he was paid by a man called ‘Gustav’ to burn the train, yet this clear cohesion of minors still somehow qualifies them as terrorists in the eyes of the law.
These is a clear indications of political show-trials, transforming acts of property damage into acts of terror in order to drum up support for the war in Ukraine and create an internal enemy for Russians to fight, an enemy in the pay of another, foreign enemy. In the case of Ruslan Sidiki, he is not only accused of the acts that he did commit. He is accused of being in the pay of the Ukrainian Intelligence Services; his revolutionary acts only an exchange for British citizenship and cash.
Accounts of torture (CW)
He has admitted to “the preparation of the (third) explosion” only while tortured by the Russian authorities. Despite making a complaint, this violence has still not been investigated as the trial of Sidiki continues. Three weeks after the attack on a military airfield, he was arrested and taken to the police station. Sidiki was handed over to plain clothes security forces who demanded he admitted his guilt or he would be tortured and then taken out of town and executed. They would make it look like he tried to escape, they told him.
“When I was lying on the floor, they stepped on my hands and on my feet so that I could not move them, although I did not resist”, Sidiki recalled in Mediazona “…then one of them said to someone, “Call!” At that moment, the discharge of electric current went through my body, greatly contracting the muscles to unbearable pain, I was screaming a lot and hitting my head on the floor, one of them was standing in front of me and filming me on my phone”.
Sidiki was threatened with sexual assault, dismemberment of extremities and asked a number confusing questions while being electrocuted. “In my opinion”, Sidiki recalled, “the discharge from their apparatus for torture was comparable to a rosette category of 220 volts. Since I work as an electrician, in my life there were times when I got under that voltage, and I can compare the effect”.
“The exact time as long as the torture lasted, I can not say, since after a few shocks my mind blurred, I can say that it is unbearably painful”.
A correspondent from Mediazona is following Sidiki’s case, as well as Solidarity Zone, as both are attempting to report from the court despite severe restrictions imposed by Judge Oleg Shishov prohibiting journalists from recording the proceedings.
“I was put in a car where there were only people in masks”, Sidiki recalls. “I think it was not accidental, and the investigator and lawyer drove in another car. I was taken to the locations of hiding places and sabotage, where, having left the IVS, I was immediately beaten by people in masks in the area of the head, chest and abdomen”.
“Also, these people had a stun gun in the form of a baton, and most of the time I was electrocuted until the charge ran out. From this stun gun on the body there are traces-burns in the form of points, it also burns clothes”.
“I am still afraid for my life and health from these people who tortured and beat me after being detained”, Sidiki said.
The prosecutor’s case against Sidiki attempts to move away from his politics as an anarchist, as the defining feature of his accused terrorism. Residents and childhood friends have been pulled into court in some attempt to find someone adversely effected by the actions of Sidiki. The train driver had his complaints and demanded millions of Roubles in compensation.
The anarchist conceded ‘dryly’ that a ‘moral injury’ was done to the driver. After all, he was only driving a train full of explosives towards a country being invaded his own.
Yet despite accusations that Sidiki was in the pay of Ukrainian intelligence, reported only in the discredited TASS state media, his targets appeared personal and more grounded to the politics the Russian Federation would like to ignore: those of sabotage and direct action against authoritarianism.
“The hum of the Tu-22 and Tu-95 outside the window coincided with the strikes on Ukraine, and this determined my choice of target: the Dyagilevo military airfield, just ten kilometres from home. I lived with an 80-year-old grandmother and understood how hard it is for the elderly and sick without heat and light in winter”, Sidiki writes, reported by Solidarity Zone.
“Filling the bathtub with hot water, I thought about those who were deprived of basic conditions a thousand kilometres away because of geopolitical ambitions. And at the same time, they still talk about “brotherly nations” and that “Russia does not fight civilians”.
“In my understanding, being an anarchist is, if possible, to help or participate in nearby projects”, he says in Mediazona. “Participate in actions, the essence of which is the protection of the rights and freedoms of the working people. If circumstances allow, bring your ideas to the right people. Acquire new knowledge and skills that allow you to do the above more effectively”.
“When I was in jail”, Rozhkov said in an interview before his arrest, “a lawyer came to me from the Anarchist Black Cross. I was offered help. We also asked some questions: do I want to receive letters, help, transfers and publicize the case? I refused support and publicity, but I decided that it would be nice to receive letters from people who remained indifferent, who help people like us in captivity. The letters really helped me a lot…”
“If you want to somehow brighten up the life of prisoners”, Sidiki says , “write letters, send postcards, it makes you smile, despite all the hardships”.
Messages to Ruslan Sidiki and Alexy Rozhkov should be translated into Russian and sent either to Solidarity Zone or via the following addresses:
620019, Russia, Yekaterinburg, Repina street, 4, SIZO-1, Rozhkov Alexey Igorevich 1997
125130, Moscow, st. Vyborgskaya, d. 20, SIZO-5, Sidiki Ruslan Kasemovich 1988
Top photos: Mediazona, SOTAvision