The Supreme Court of Bashkortostan sentenced a 23-year-old resident of the city of Sibay to 15 years in prison, the regional prosecutor's office reported.
The young man was found guilty of treason and sabotage (Article 275 of the Criminal Code and Part 1 of Article 281 of the Criminal Code). He will spend the first three years of his term in prison, the rest of the time — in a maximum security colony.
The court found that the resident of Sibay «received an assignment from the military intelligence of Ukraine» and «from May 2022 to March 2023 tried to involve his acquaintances» in the activities of the Freedom of Russia Legion.
In March last year, according to the prosecution, the man poured flammable liquid on a relay cabinet on the railway, as a result of which the equipment completely failed. The damage was estimated at more than 280.7 thousand rubles.
A resident of Sibay also published a video “on a network resource channel” that “discredits” the army, the prosecutor’s office emphasized.
The Shot Telegram channel wrote on March 10 about the detention of a resident of Bashkiria on suspicion of setting fire to a relay cabinet on the Sibay-Almukhametovo section. The fire was quickly extinguished and did not affect the train schedule. RBC, citing a source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported that the person in question was a resident of Sibay, Alik Bagautdinov.
According to security officials, Bagautdinov committed arson “in order to stop” the war in Ukraine. Initially, the Ministry of Internal Affairs checked him under the article on rendering communication lines unusable (Part 1 of Article 267 of the Criminal Code), the maximum punishment for which is one year of imprisonment.