On April 5, the Northern Fleet Military Court pronounced a verdict against 32-year-old former classmates — Alexander Levadny and Ilya Sadkov, accused in the case of arson of the military registration and enlistment office. The names of the accused became known from the card of appeal against the verdict received by the military appeal court near Moscow.
A source familiar with the criminal case told Mediazona that Levadny was sentenced to 17 years in prison, Sadkov — 14 years. They will spend the first three years in prison, and the rest in a maximum security colony. Levadny was found guilty of treasonand inclination to commit a terrorist attack, and Sadkova — in the terrorist act, resulting in significant property damage, and possession of drugs.
A source told Mediazona that Levadny and Sadkov are childhood friends from Murmansk. Before the arrest, Sadkov was unemployed, and Levadny worked at the Antey-Sever fishing enterprise in the contract department. After the start of the war, Levadny reacted negatively to the decision to send troops to Ukraine, since he has friends and relatives living there. At the same time, he did not express his position on social networks, but only discussed with friends, for example, with Sadkov, and read information about the war in Telegram channels.
The charge against Levadny under the article of treason is based on wiretapping of his telephone conversations with a friend from Ukraine who fought for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the same time, wiretaps are excerpts no longer than three seconds long, which do not provide the full context of the conversation. For what reason and when exactly the special services decided to put Levadny under wiretapping, Mediazona’s interlocutor does not know.
Sadkov was detained after setting fire to a military registration and enlistment office in early March 2023. During interrogation, he admitted guilt and said that he formed the intention to set fire to the military registration and enlistment office independently due to his personal desire to hinder the Russian army. However, after the arrest, the investigator ordered an examination of the recordings of personal conversations between Sadkov and Levadny, which they conducted during meetings and on the phone — FSB operatives recorded them during various operational-search activities.
According to Mediazona’s interlocutor, Levadny did not know that Sadkov was going to throw a Molotov cocktail at a specific military registration and enlistment office — there were indeed conversations about arson, but they were more of an abstract discussion. However, experts came to the conclusion that it was Levadny who persuaded his friend to carry out the action, as a result of which the window sill of the military registration and enlistment office was damaged.
According to the source, both accused survived torture after their arrest. Levadny was detained on the evening of March 2, but was arrested only on March 4. Before his arrest, he was tortured with electricity, but this issue was not considered in court, since Levadny confessed and said that he received injuries as a result of a fall. Sadkov was also beaten before his arrest, but the injuries were reported as resulting from resisting arrest.
A native of Ukraine, whom Levadny met on the Mamba dating site, spoke at the trial. According to Mediazona’s interlocutor, in court she testified that he supported the Armed Forces of Ukraine and adhered to neo-Nazi ideology. Levadny’s conversation with a friend from Ukraine, during which he said that “he would rather go over to the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces than kill Ukrainians,” took place after the young man discovered a summons to the military registration and enlistment office in his mailbox.
However, an employee of the military registration and enlistment office was questioned in court, who said that the document could not have been served in this way. Thus, the source suggests, the subpoena could have been a fake, invented in order to provoke Levadny, who was already a simpleton, to make a more radical statement in a conversation with his friend.
In the appeal, which will be considered by a court in the Moscow region, Levadny’s defense asks to reclassify the charge of treason as attempted treason (part 1 of article 30, part 1 of article 275 of the Criminal Code), and the charge of conversations with Sadkov about the arson of the military registration and enlistment office — under Article 205.6 of the Criminal Code (failure to report an impending terrorist attack).