Unlikely plot. A tortured Ukrainian and two Russian war criminals face charges over an alleged Rostov prison mutiny aimed to end the war

The prosecution claims that the four men formed a “terrorist community” inside Rostov’s SIZO-1 pre-trial detention centre. The alleged ringleader of this group is 44-year-old Serhiy Heidt, a former fishery manager from the Ukrainian city of Kherson.

According to the indictment, Heidt assigned roles to his three cellmates: Kamil Binaliev, a Ukrainian citizen serving four years for a minor marijuana offence, and former Russian contract soldiers Stanislav Rau and Anton Sopov. The plan was allegedly for Sopov to attack a prison guard during a routine walk, steal his uniform and keys, and free the others. Heidt was then supposed to arm the group with makeshift weapons—including a metal pipe, a sharpened pin, and fragments of a tin can—to liberate other Ukrainian prisoners from their cells.

Once in control of the facility’s duty room, the conspirators allegedly planned to issue an ultimatum to the Russian government: halt the war against Ukraine, release all Ukrainian prisoners of war, and ensure their safe return home. If these demands were ignored, Rau and Sopov were allegedly tasked with… burning the facility down using “improvised incendiary devices”.

While Rau and Sopov have fully admitted guilt and refused to testify, Heidt and Binaliev have stated they will address the charges later in the trial.

Rau, 28, and Sopov, 21, are infamous for one of the most horrific war crimes committed by Russian forces since the full-scale invasion. In October 2023, the two soldiers broke into a private home in occupied town of Volnovakha and used silenced assault rifles to execute all nine members of the Kapkanets family, including children aged four and nine. According to media reports, the massacre was sparked by a dispute over moonshine. In 2024, a military court sentenced both men to life in a supermax-type penal colony.

Serhiy Heidt was a prominent figure in the “Kherson nine” case. In the summer of 2022, Russian FSB officers abducted Heidt and eight other Ukrainian civilians, accusing them of plotting to assassinate pro-Russian collaborating officials.

During his trial, Heidt testified that he was held in a basement in Kherson for over a month, where he was electrocuted, beaten with a door, and left hanging from a grate by his handcuffs for ten days. In that basement, Vasily Stetsenko, a fellow abductee who refused to cooperate with the occupying authorities, died in Heidt’s arms after being tortured. In 2026, Heidt was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security penal colony.

This case is not an isolated incident in Rostov. Over the past year, authorities have repeatedly accused detainees of orchestrating elaborate uprisings with political demands.

Just this summer, the same Southern District Military Court sentenced three other inmates to terms ranging from 22 to 29 years for allegedly plotting to capture and burn Rostov’s SIZO-5. That group was similarly diverse: Volodymyr Makarenko, a Ukrainian PoW from the Aidar battalion; Grigory Sinchenko, a Ukrainian civilian from Donetsk; and Dmitry Papenko from Crimea, convicted of treason.

Much like the current trial, the men were accused of planning to capture guards, use Molotov cocktails, and demand an end to the war. The prosecution’s entire case rested on the testimony of a secret cellmate testifying via a hidden video feed under the pseudonym “Santa.”