Crimean political prisoner Oleh Prykhodko, 67, sentenced to 18 and a half years in fourth criminal case
Oleh Prykhodko, a Ukrainian from Crimea held as a political prisoner in Russia, has been sentenced to 18 and a half years over conversations with his fellow inmates, Mediazona reports.
This is the fourth criminal case against Prykhodko. It came to light in March, when the FSB alleged that an unnamed prisoner serving his sentence in a penal colony in Krasnodar Krai had been urging fellow inmates to switch sides if they signed up to fight in the war. The FSB released a video in which an anonymous prisoner says: ‘We talked about all sorts of things, including politics. He told me how glad he was that over there, on their Maidan… Well, by then I didn’t like what he was saying. Then he found out I was going to take part in the “special military operation” to atone for my guilt before the motherland. He told me I shouldn’t do it, and that even if I went there… if I shot one of the top commanders, surrendered and said “Glory to Ukraine!”, everything would be fine, everything would be wonderful.’
A criminal case was opened against Prykhodko on charges of facilitating terrorist activity (Article 205.1, Part 1.1 of the Russian Criminal Code) and attempted incitement to treason (Article 30, Part 3; Article 33, Part 4; and Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). The case reached the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don in April, and the court handed down its verdict on 5 November.
Oleh Prykhodko is 67. He was born in the town of Saky in Crimea and lived there until his arrest. A blacksmith by trade, he took part in the Maidan protests in Kyiv, publicly condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and hung a Ukrainian flag on his house. He was detained in 2019 and accused of preparing to blow up the Saky city administration building and to set fire to the Russian Consulate General in Lviv. He was sentenced to five years on these charges in 2021. The following year, his sentence was extended by a month for insulting an FSB investigator who had testified against him in court.
In 2023, a criminal case was opened against Oleh Prykhodko on charges of rehabilitation of Nazism and public calls for terrorism, over his alleged conversations with cellmates. Later that year, he was sentenced to a further four and a half years; the term was reduced by one month on appeal.
