77‑year‑old Crimean activist sentenced to 18 years by Russia. He was charged with “terrorism” and calls this a “death sentence”

The prosecution had sought a 22-year prison term for Volodymyr Ananiev under charges of “illegal trafficking of explosives” and “preparation for a terrorist attack.”

According to the FSB, Ananiev, along with Volodymyr Bodnar and Oksana Shevchenko, was a member of an underground group that, on behalf of Ukrainian special services, was preparing an assassination attempt in Simferopol against Sergei Aksyonov, the head of the annexed Crimea. To this end, they monitored the official’s car “using a surveillance camera installed in a rented non-residential premises.”

The court had been hearing the case against Ananyev since February 2025. According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, the elderly man’s health problems worsened while he was held at Rostov’s Pretrial Detention Center No. 5, and he received virtually no medical care. During court hearings, he leaned on a cane, complained of high blood pressure, and asked for a doctor to be called.

Krym.Realii describes Ananiev as a “grassroots activist” who, since the early 2000s, had collaborated with the Union of Landowners and helped Crimean farmers with privatizing land plots and establishing businesses.

After Russia’s annexation of the peninsula, Ananiev lived in Kyiv; however, in November 2023, he decided to travel to Kerch “to visit his parents’ graves” and from there went to stay with an acquaintance in Simferopol.

On 5 February 2024, security forces reported that they had foiled an “SBU terrorist attack against one of Crimea’s leaders.” In a video distributed at the time by state agencies, Bodnar stated that he had brought an “American- or German-made mine” into Crimea via Melitopol and then hidden it in a garage. In surveillance footage included in the same video, at least six security officers with assault rifles, wearing helmets and body armor, can be seen storming into a private home and pinning Ananiev to the floor.

In 2025, Bodnar and Shevchenko were sentenced to 13 and 10 years in prison, respectively. As a result of a plea deal, heir cases were heard by the court under a special procedure—that is, without an examination of the evidence. At the same time, as attorney Refat Yunus noted during closing arguments, in Ananiev’s case, “the prosecution cited the final judgments against Bodnar and Shevchenko as evidence of guilt.” The defense attorney added that, according to Bodnar’s testimony, neither he nor Shevchenko knew Ananiev prior to their arrest; they had only heard from their “supervisor” that a certain “old man” would be helping them in Crimea.

The investigation claimed that Ananiev rented commercial space in Simferopol, installed a video camera there “to monitor the road,” and granted Bodnar access to the live feed via a special app; he later purchased and stored explosives in the same premises.

The defendant did not deny that in December 2023 he had indeed been “commissioned” to organize a kitchen with delivery service at one of Simferopol’s cafes. He signed a lease for the adjacent space, found workers to carry out the renovation and setup—including the installation of video surveillance—but subsequently, those workers communicated directly with the client.

In his closing arguments, attorney Yunus added that investigators had neither seized nor examined the camera itself, nor had they questioned the workers who installed it.

The defendant insisted during his closing arguments that the seized explosives did not belong to him either. According to Ananiev, the rented space was connected to the café by a door, and on the day before his arrest, he saw the owner’s wife “fiddling” with some kind of bag near that door. The next time, Ananiev said, he saw the same bag “in the bare hands of a bomb disposal expert who was conducting the search without gloves.” The investigation did not conduct fingerprint analysis or biological testing of the bag, defense attorney Yunus clarified.

On the eve of the sentencing, Volodymyr Ananiev delivered his closing statement and prayed for his “tormentors”: law enforcement officers, judges, and court-appointed attorneys involved in his prosecution. Mediazona is publishing the statement in full: