{"id":36343,"date":"2024-05-22T14:55:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T11:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/memopzk.org\/news\/ostanovilsya-poezd-chto-my-znaem-o-dele-ili-podkamennogo-iz-irkutska-kotoryj-poluchil-12-let-za-provoloku-na-relsah-i-neskolko-listovok\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T01:10:54","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T22:10:54","slug":"ostanovilsya-poezd-chto-my-znaem-o-dele-ili-podkamennogo-iz-irkutska-kotoryj-poluchil-12-let-za-provoloku-na-relsah-i-neskolko-listovok","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/memopzk.org\/en\/news\/ostanovilsya-poezd-chto-my-znaem-o-dele-ili-podkamennogo-iz-irkutska-kotoryj-poluchil-12-let-za-provoloku-na-relsah-i-neskolko-listovok\/","title":{"rendered":"The train has stopped. How Ilya Podkamenny from Irkutsk got 12 years in jail for several leaflets and putting wire on the rails"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u0418\u043b\u044c\u044f \u041f\u043e\u0434\u043a\u0430\u043c\u0435\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0432 \u0421\u0418\u0417\u041e. \u0424\u043e\u0442\u043e \u0438\u0437 \u0441\u0435\u043c\u0435\u0439\u043d\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0430\u0440\u0445\u0438\u0432\u0430<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does one express their rejection of war? Writes leaflets on torn-out notebook pages. But what if no one notices them? One needs to scatter the leaflets on the rails and stop the train \u2014 then they will definitely be noticed! For 19-year-old Ilya Podkamenny, this naive reasoning cost him 12 years of imprisonment, three of which he must spend in a regular prison, and the remaining in a strict-regime colony. After studying the case materials, Mediazona<\/em> tells the story of a young man from the Irkutsk region, convicted under six articles of the Russian Criminal Code following an incident on the East Siberian Railway, where no one was injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u0427\u0438\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c \u043d\u0430 \u0440\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u043e\u043c<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the Stations of Goncharovo and Bolshoy Lug in the Shelekhov District of the Irkutsk Region, even at night, trains run with intervals of no more than ten minutes. Summer houses stretch along the railway, surrounded by wooded hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 10, 2022, around two o\u2019clock in the morning, a young man wearing a blue raincoat and respirator appeared near the tracks in the area of the \u201cNerudnik\u201d allotment village. He waited for a train to pass, climbed onto the embankment, and scattered notebook sheets with slogans: \u201cDeath to Kacaps, freedom to Siberia,\u201d \u201cGlory to the Republic of Siberia,\u201d \u201cWhether you like it or not, the Empire will fall apart,\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ll hang Putinists on trees instead of leaves, death to fascist Putin.\u201d Then the young man wrapped copper wire around the rails, descended from the embankment, and disappeared into the dark.What happens if you wrap the rails with wire, and how is it related to the war in Ukraine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 2:27, a freight train stopped due to a red signal on the Big Lug \u2014 Goncharovo section. The driver, Igor Mankevich, contacted the dispatcher and, ensuring there were no other trains ahead, cautiously continued the movement. After two kilometers, Mankevich and his assistant Viktor Pukalo noticed a sparkle on the tracks. The wire was clearly visible in the headlights. The train made an emergency stop and, after passing over the wire, halted. The driver and his assistant exited the cabin and noticed leaflets on the tracks. As the investigator later wrote, Mankevich \u201cbecame very wary and returned to the driver\u2019s cabin for a hammer to protect himself and his assistant in case of an attack\u201d \u2014 there was no one around, and they \u201cdidn\u2019t know what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pukalo recorded the wire and leaflets on video, which appeared<\/a> on the Baza<\/em> Telegram channel. The driver took his findings with him and later handed them over to the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
\u201cWe\u2019ll hang Putinists on trees instead of leaves, death to fascist Putin.\u201d Photo of a leaflet from the case files<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Seven months of searching and five refusals to open the case<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear from the case documents how the enforcement officials identified Ilya Podkamenny and linked him to his Telegram account.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For months, the authorities were unsuccessfully searching for the saboteur. Initially, the investigation was handled by the linear department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the Irkutsk-Passenger station. On the morning of May 10, the police arrived at the place where Mankevich and Pukalo stopped the train, but they found neither shoe prints nor fingerprints, and the service dog named Iris \u201clay down during the inspection, thereby indicating that the trail was lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police then began questioning summer residents from nearby settlements: had they heard anyone expressing extremist ideas? \u201cI have not heard any dissatisfaction with the government or Russia from those living in this area or those I work with,\u201d they wrote down the watchman\u2019s of SNT \u201cDachnaya,\u201d Sergey Kuznetsov\u2019s statement. Other respondents gave similar answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A linguistic examination ordered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs identified calls for Siberia\u2019s separation from Russia in the leaflets. The department concluded that this could be qualified as calls for extremism, and on May 23, transferred the investigation materials to the FSB department of the Irkutsk region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FSB officers also faced difficulties during the investigation. They found that there were no cameras on the section where the leaflets were found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 2, investigator Domnin refused to open a criminal case, noting that although genetic material was found on the notebook sheets and wire, it was insufficient for testing. \u201cThere is no information about the person(s) who could have committed the crime, and there is no objective evidence that the [leaflets] were placed by any person,\u201d wrote Domnin in the refusal decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But on the same day, the head of the investigative department of the FSB, Zakhvatkin, overturned this decision as \u201cpremature\u201d and demanded further verification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 1, investigator Domnin again attempted to refuse to open a case, but Zakhvatkin again overturned his decision, and the investigation materials were transferred to another investigator named Golitsa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 22, Golitsa came to the same conclusions as Domnin and refused to open a case. But the top management insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then investigator Golitsa instructed operatives to search the internet for the slogans from the leaflets. In the telegram, law enforcement found the channel \u201cSiberian Liberation Movement \u2014 Republic of Siberia.\u201d One of its authors wrote under the nickname \u201cDeath to Kacaps \u2014 Freedom to Siberia!\u201d The same words were printed on the notebook sheets left on the railway tracks four months ago. Despite the obvious coincidence, the investigator seemed in no hurry to pull this thread and twice more refused to open a case; both refusal decisions were predictably overturned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, on November 10, Golitsa asked the head of the Center for Counteracting Extremism of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Irkutsk Region, Silin, to find the admins of the \u201cSiberian Liberation Movement\u201d: \u201cto establish the person involved in the crime provided for in part 1 of article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as well as persons informed about the commission of the above crime with subsequent interrogation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just five days later, the law enforcement officers detained the 20-year-old Danil Tomshin and the 18-year-old Ilya Podkamenny from Irkutsk, together with the 17-year-old Oleg Berezin from Krasnokamensk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How exactly the investigators identified the young people and linked them to the telegram accounts is unclear. Ilya Podkamenny\u2019s account was registered to an Estonian phone number. In letters from the pre-trial detention centre, Podkamenny told Mediazona’s<\/em> correspondent that he was found because of the Telegram channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His court-appointed lawyer, Gennady Sukhaev, told Mediazona<\/em> that the investigation did not include the details of the operational search activities in the case materials because Ilya confessed to everything himself, and his testimony was confirmed by the inspection of the devices. \u201cIf he had argued and denied his guilt, the investigation would have had to publish the materials of the operational search activities during which they discovered the connection between Ilya and Rebellion Cat,\u201d added the lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Siberian partisan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What the testimonies of Ilya Podkamenny and his accomplices say.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the nickname Rebellion Cat, as it appears from Ilya\u2019s explanations to FSB investigator Danilov, he administered the telegram channel \u201cSiberian Liberation Movement,\u201d wrote about sabotage and arson, posted recipes for Molotov cocktails and ways to make bombs, and also called for Siberia\u2019s separation from Russia because as an independent state, it \u201ccould develop better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creator of the channel was not Podkamenny but Oleg Berezin. They met on Telegram in April 2022. Ilya knew Oleg under the nicknames \u201cDeath to Kacaps \u2014 Freedom to Siberia,\u201d \u201cDeath to Muscovites \u2014 Freedom to Siberia,\u201d and \u201cAnon.\u201d The young men never met in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Podkamenny and Berezin discussed ways of anti-war agitation and promoting the channel. If leaflets are left at the site of an emergency train stop, the driver and police will find them. They might photograph the find and post pictures on the internet, Ilya reasoned, and so many more people would see the leaflets. On the evening of May 9, he was at the family summer house in the \u201cNerudnik\u201d allotment village and decided to stop the train to \u201cconvey his views to society and promote\u201d the channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
\u041f\u043e\u0440\u0442\u0440\u0435\u0442 \u041f\u043e\u0434\u043a\u0430\u043c\u0435\u043d\u043d\u043e\u0433\u043e, \u043d\u0430\u0440\u0438\u0441\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0435\u0433\u043e \u0441\u043e\u043a\u0430\u043c\u0435\u0440\u043d\u0438\u043a\u043e\u043c<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u200b\u200bThe young man took the remaining copper wire from house renovations, which he had hidden under his bed, made the leaflets, and around two in the morning sneaked out of the house \u2014 so late so that his mother and stepfather wouldn\u2019t notice, he explained to the investigator. Podkamenny quietly passed the guard booth of the village and reached the railway. There he scattered the leaflets, wrapped the rails with wire, and quietly returned to the summer house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilya Podkamenny gave this testimony on November 15, 2023 \u2014 immediately after his arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the same day, the FSB investigator opened a criminal case against him for calls to extremism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Danil Tomshin, whom police extremism unit operative Moskvitin interrogated on November 15, confirmed Podkamenny\u2019s testimony. Tomshin said he subscribed to the telegram channel \u201cSiberian Liberation Movement\u201d in April 2022 because he was curious \u201cwhat would happen if Siberia left Russia.\u201d In the channel chat, he discussed with Rebellion Cat and other users how to disrupt train movements so that \u201cSiberia\u2019s resources wouldn\u2019t go to support Russia\u2019s military actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 2022, according to Tomshin, Rebellion Cat DMed him the method of stopping trains using wire. He suggested meeting in person to discuss this method, but Tomshin refused, considering it \u201cvery risky.\u201d A few days later, Rebellion Cat sent a video showing a train driver swearing because of the wire and leaflets on the tracks \u2014 likely the same video from the Baza<\/em> channel \u2014 and wrote: \u201cThe job is done!\u201d Then Rebellion Cat reported the action in the channel chat, \u201cdescribed the method used,\u201d and specified that it happened near the town of Shelekhov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebellion Cat asked Tomshin to spread the video \u201cfor the sake of our ideas and future.\u201d He agreed and sent the video and photo to the \u201cAnti-war Irkutsk\u201d group, captioning those with the words: \u201cOur heroes!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b\u200b\u201cI couldn\u2019t spread the discussed data to other telegram channels because it was prohibited by the administrators. After posting these materials, I stopped talking to Rebellion Cat because I was afraid that law enforcement officers would find us,\u201d Tomshin\u2019s words are recorded in the protocol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creator of the telegram channel that intrigued the security forces so much, Oleg Berezin, said that in late March \u2014 early April, he noticed comments by Rebellion Cat in the telegram channel of \u201cMeduza\u201d: the latter suggested that residents of the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East secede from Russia to \u201cnot bear responsibility for the ongoing SMO [Special Military Operation].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b\u200bOleg liked this idea, and he sent a personal message to the commentator. Rebellion Cat replied, saying he lived in Irkutsk, but Berezin knew little more about him and called his new acquaintance \u201cIrkutyanin\u201d [Irkutskian].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the interrogation, Ilya Podkamenny presented a different version: he said he saw Berezin\u2019s comments about Siberia\u2019s independence in the chat of the Ukrainian telegram channel \u201cMinecraft Player in the Trenches,\u201d got interested, and was the first one to message Oleg privately. Berezin then suggested he join the \u201cSiberian Liberation Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b\u200b\u201cWell, maybe I was trying to pin something on him a little bit. But he did the same. We were both very scared at the time, we had just been detained. I thought he was a student when I was free. I don\u2019t know much about him. I\u2019m afraid people don\u2019t know about him, unlike me, as he\u2019s not on the list of political prisoners,\u201d Podkamenny wrote to Mediazona<\/em> from the pre-trial detention centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, on April 18, Oleg Berezin created the telegram channel \u201cRepublic of Siberia,\u201d later renamed \u201cSiberian Liberation Movement.\u201d Initially, Berezin was the only administrator, but three months later, he gave admin rights to Rebellion Cat, who meanwhile was working on the Constitution of the Republic of Siberia. Oleg and Ilya found a white-green Siberian flag and a snowflake-shaped coat of arms on the internet, which they \u201cdecided to adopt as the symbols of the Republic of Siberia.\u201d By October 2022, the channel had about a thousand subscribers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 16, the Kirovsky District Court of Irkutsk placed Podkamenny under house arrest. In the investigator\u2019s petition, it was noted that \u201cadditional episodes of criminal activity\u201d of the young man were still being established. In December, he was transferred to a pre-trial detention centre. Based on Ilya\u2019s detailed confessions, he was charged with five more articles of the Criminal Code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December, while Ilya was still under house arrest, he had a nervous breakdown. \u201cI heard rumours from my mother that I might soon be sent to a pre-trial detention centre,\u201d he recalled in a letter. \u201cAnd I knew that 205 would be charged. I was very nervous and depressed\u201d. In his own words, Podkamenny then \u201cdirected the pain and impotent anger\u201d at himself \u2014 he damaged his right shin so that now \u201cthere is a huge scar there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the letter he specified that this happened shortly before the tightening of the preventive measure. Based on Ilya\u2019s detailed confession, he was charged with five more articles of the Criminal Code. The court decided to take him into custody, but the prison doctor at the pre-trial detention centre insisted that Podkamenny be transferred to a civil hospital, where he underwent surgery. And only then returned to the detention centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Despair and Activism Are Connected<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the war, Ilya Podkamenny  was feeling \u201cthe abbys growimg\u201d and contemplated suicide, but by the time of his arrest, he had fallen in love and abandoned the Telegram channel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last months before his arrest, Ilya Podkamenny worked at a Subway restaurant. In 2021, he dropped out of school after the ninth grade because he failed to pass exams in mathematics and chemistry. The young man lived with his mother and stepfather and studied 3D modelling in his free time. In February 2022, he started reading the news and concluded that \u201cRussia is the aggressor and started war against Ukraine,\u201d as stated in his testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelizaveta Podkamennaya told the investigator that she divorced Ilya\u2019s father in 2014. She then married an American scientist, Jason Cronbach van Boom. The couple teaches foreign languages at the Faculty of Business Communications and Informatics at Irkutsk State University. Cronbach is also working on his doctoral dissertation at Tartu University<\/a> in Estonia, Ilya said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Yelizaveta Podkamennaya. Photo from the case files<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Yelizaveta, her son had some communication problems; peers \u201calways considered him strange due to his antisocial behaviour,\u201d and there were fights occasionally. However, teachers described Ilya as \u201can intelligent, clever, well-read guy.\u201d He mainly received B grades. \u201cMy son\u2019s intellectual abilities always manifested themselves,\u201d emphasised Yelizaveta. \u201cFor example, in 2015, when he was 11, he became interested in engineering sciences, electronics, computers, and wired the gazebo at the summer house himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As recorded in the protocol, according to Ilya\u2019s mom, \u201cmy son never lacked anything, the living conditions and his maintenance were always positive.\u201d Ilya often stayed home alone because his mother and her husband flew to the US to visit his relatives. In February 2022, he was also alone: Podkamennaya and Cronbach went to a semiotics conference in Estonia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 28, Yelizaveta discovered that someone was sending \u201cpro-Ukrainian news\u201d to her students from her VKontakte<\/em> page. She began deleting the messages, but they reappeared. Podkamennaya guessed that her son might be behind the anti-war \u201cnewsletter\u201d. She wrote to Ilya and asked why he was doing this; he replied that he \u201cdecided to cut off your and your husband\u2019s way back to Russia\u201d because of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple returned home on March 3 and had a \u201cdisciplinary conversation\u201d with the young man, after which he \u201cstarted having suicidal thoughts, which he expresses to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b\u200bPodkamennaya told the investigator that she \u201crepeatedly tried to reason with\u201d her son, but he still supported \u201cthe Kyiv regime and its anti-Russian policy.\u201d Both she and her husband support the \u201cspecial military operation\u201d and have a \u201cpositive attitude towards the current government,\u201d emphasised Yelizaveta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy activism wasn\u2019t particularly sensible,\u201d Podkamenny admitted one of his letters to Mediazona\u2019s<\/em> correspondent from the Irkutsk pre-trial detention centre. \u201cI was then in despair from the void gathering around me, from the constant attacks of my mother, from the feeling of my own worthlessness and insignificance, from the horrific madness that began on 24.02.2022, of course, too. I wanted to do something against this horror, something good, at least, to not be useless and worthless. To cling to life, to step back from the terrible brink of suicide, which I was close to. Well, I didn\u2019t realise it all then, I just acted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by the fall of 2022, everything changed. According to Ilya, he fell in love with a girl and \u201chad already given up on the channel and activism.\u201d \u201cI was more interested in how to win her over,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the morning of November 15, when he left home and headed to work at Subway, he was detained by special forces from the Rosgvardia \u201cGrom\u201d (\u201cThunder\u201d) unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mother versus son\u200b\u200b<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Setting relay cabinets or a military enlistment office on fire was not allowed by Ilya Podkamenny\u2019s mother \u2014 she found and confiscated Molotov cocktails. He considers the FSB officers his saviours: unlike the <\/em>CPE<\/em> operatives, they behaved \u201ccorrectly.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilya and Yelizaveta Podkamenny cooperated with the investigation. \u201cI confessed and repented because from the very beginning, under my mother\u2019s influence, I gave testimony against myself. She just believes it\u2019s better to tell everything honestly and right away,\u201d he wrote in a letter to Mediazona<\/em>. The young man recalled that his devout mother \u201craised [him] in the \u2018fear of God\u2019 from an early age,\u201d but by adolescence, he got tired of it and became an atheist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilya explained that he did not refuse to plead guilty\u201cso as not to go against those who saved me from that hell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUntil the pre-trial detention center, I was jointly handled by the FSB and CPE, then only the FSB. They behaved correctly, and the CPE\u2026\u201d he wrote. Lawyer Sukhaev did not mention violence from law enforcement officers; Podkamenny himself clarified in another letter: \u201cI can\u2019t say more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the investigation, Ilya said that in early September 2022, he made an acquaintance in the channel chat with someone he believed to be a Ukrainian soldier. The latter suggested setting fire to a military enlistment office and sent a link to the book \u201cRussian Cuisine. The ABCs of \u2018Homemade Terrorism\u2019.\u201d After studying the manual, the young man considered setting relay cabinets on fire on the railway. On September 15, he filled two plastic bottles with a mixture of acetone, turpentine, ammonium nitrate, and potassium nitrate; these components were bought with money his mother gave him to buy lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was the one who thwarted her son\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 20, Yelizaveta entered his room to clean it up. \u201cI saw two plastic bottles in which something was mixed. I told him to throw them away. My son listened to me but took the bottles carelessly, after which I told him to be careful as this mixture could explode. My son replied that this mixture couldn\u2019t explode, it needed contact with fire to ignite, but he fulfilled my request and threw the bottles away,\u201d said Ilya\u2019s mother. The investigation did not separately charge him for this episode. Lawyer Gennady Sukhaev told Mediazona<\/em> that \u201che doesn\u2019t remember exactly why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Ilya considered setting a military enlistment office on fire. On September 22, he posted<\/a> \u201cThe ABCs of \u2018Homemade Terrorism\u2019\u201d in the Telegram channel, and two days later, published<\/a> cryptocurrency details and asked subscribers to send money for \u201cfull-fledged radical actions.\u201d \u201cWe decided to create a cryptocurrency fund to start fighting the Moscow regime not only with words but also with deeds. As our first action, we plan to set a military enlistment office on fire in one of the cities in Siberia (for obvious reasons, we won\u2019t say which one),\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 25, an unknown person transferred him about three thousand rubles, and he received another five thousand from the admins of the \u201cRPD Cherny Most\u201d (Russian Partisan Movement \u201cBlack Bridge\u201d) channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had no money for incendiary mixture, so I asked them for it,\u201d Ilya said. He converted the cryptocurrency into rubles, transferred it to his Tinkoff card, and withdrew it from an ATM in the Karamel shopping centre on Partizanskaya Street in Irkutsk. With this money, the young man bought a ten-litre canister of gasoline, five litres of acetone, and three bottles of kerosene and took it all home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Podkamenny planned to set the military enlistment office in the settlement of Dzerzhinsk in the Irkutsk region on fire \u2014 the building is near a forest, he explained, so after the action, \u201cit would be easy to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, his mother intervened in his plans again. Yelizaveta smelled gasoline coming from Ilya\u2019s room and decided to check what was going on when he left for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought my son might set something on fire because earlier he had enthusiastically told how military enlistment offices were set on fire in different cities. I took the canisters and bottles and took them to my mother\u2019s house. When my son returned from work, he asked me where the gasoline, acetone, and kerosene were. I told him I took them away and he would never see them again,\u201d Yelizaveta said during interrogation. According to her, Ilya was a bit \u201cnervous\u201d but there was \u201cno conflict,\u201d he was just \u201cunhappy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, Ilya confessed to his mother that the money \u201cfor kerosene, gasoline, and acetone was transferred to him via cryptocurrency by some foreign agent,\u201d and Yelizaveta \u201cforbade him to communicate with that person and also told him to visit the internet and read opposition related stuff less.\u201d The young man explained that he wanted to set the military enlistment office on fire in protest against mobilisation. His mother warned that Ilya would be imprisoned, but \u201cmy son didn\u2019t believe me, claiming that no one works in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the second administrator of the channel, Oleg Berezin, according to his testimony, Ilya said something different \u2014 that he tried but failed to set the enlistment office on fire: allegedly, the Molotov cocktail he threw didn\u2019t break the window, the incendiary mixture spilled on the ground, and the firefighters extinguished it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During these same days, Podkamenny actively reposted publications from the \u201cRPD Cherny Most\u201d channel to his channel, calling for the arson of enlistment offices. On September 16, he forwarded a post with the words: \u201cAutumn \u2014 the charm of eyes, a wonderful time to burn enlistment offices,\u201d on September 21 \u2014 \u201cToday burning enlistment offices is not a form of protest but necessary self-defence against the criminal regime,\u201d on September 23 \u2014 \u201cIt is advisable to conduct additional reconnaissance of the situation before the attack\u201d and \u201cAnother very ironic target for a partisan who changed his mind about burning a guarded enlistment office \u2014 paddy wagons at rallies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b\u200bThe FSB investigation lasted for seven months. During this time, Ilya Podkamenny was charged with six articles of the Criminal Code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three of those were related to plans to set the enlistment office on fire: preparation for a terrorist act, undergoing training to carry out terrorist activities (for reading \u201cThe ABCs of \u2018Homemade Terrorism\u2019\u201d), and aiding terrorist activities (for collecting money to buy fuel).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three more articles were charged solely for his words: calls for extremism (for the leaflets scattered on the tracks), calls for extremism on the internet, and justifying terrorism (for reposting \u201cCherny Most\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the article on \u201cundergoing training,\u201d Ilya faced life imprisonment, but he entered into a pre-trial agreement with the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sentence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ilya Podkamenny was not happy with the media, which wrote that his mother \u201creported\u201d him. The 20-year-old Danil Tomshin did not live to see the trial \u2014 he gave testimony and then hanged himself. The 17-year-old Oleg Berezin was sent to compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 16 October 2023, a panel of judges of the 1st Eastern District Military Court \u2014 presiding judge Viktor Biryukov, judges Valery Andrusov and Roman Toropov \u2014 began hearing<\/a> Ilya Podkamenny\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judges Valery Andrusov and Roman Toropov were also part of a panel that heard the case of another famous prisoner from the Irkutsk region \u2014 Ruslan Zinin. In the first days of \u201cpartial\u201d mobilisation, Zinin shot<\/a> the Ust-Ilimsk military commissar three times with a sawed-off shotgun. On January 19, 2024, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prosecutor demanded the cancellation of the pre-trial agreement because one of the \u201ccrimes\u201d \u2014 the leaflets on the railway tracks \u2014 was committed when Ilya was still under eighteen. The court agreed with this argument and considered the case in the general order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelizaveta Podkamennaya testified as a witness for the prosecution; no witnesses were declared from the defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the first hearing, the prosecutor read out the testimony of the channel\u2019s subscriber, Danil Tomshin. During the investigation, he said that Rebellion Cat boasted about the sabotage on the railway. Tomshin could not testify in court because, as announced, he had committed suicide, a person present at the hearing told Mediazona<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw him only once, at the face-to-face interrogation,\u201d Ilya wrote from the pre-trial detention centre. \u201cNot long after, he hanged himself on the radiator (I found out from an FSB officer), I feel sorry for him. Honestly, I felt a bit guilty when I heard the news. If it weren\u2019t for my case, he wouldn\u2019t have had this stress, and maybe he would\u2019ve been alive now.\u201d According to Podkamenny, Tomshin was under a travel ban; which articles he was charged with is unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judges reviewed Podkamenny\u2019s case in five sessions. The sentence: 12 years of imprisonment, the first three years in prison, and the rest in a strict-regime colony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI quite expected such a sentence, I was not surprised nor upset,\u201d Ilya wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appellate court left the sentence unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oleg Berezin\u2019s case was investigated separately. He was charged with calls for terrorism and extremism on the internet. On February 6, the 2nd Eastern District Military Court sentenced<\/a> him to compulsory medical treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very worried and anxious about Berezin,\u201d Podkamenny wrote. \u201cI heard that the psychiatric hospitals in the Far East are especially bad. They\u2019ve really ruined a kid\u2019s life; I hope everything ends well eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilya loves anime and dreams of creating his own animated series, \u201cdark techno-fantasy of the digital age\u201d about anthropomorphic jaguar-like cats. He has already \u201cthought through\u201d the script for several dozen pages, but to continue, \u201cone must learn screenwriting and drama.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve changed a lot over these one and a half years. And I understand that I couldn\u2019t change anything with my activism. Oleg and I, two naive teenagers, thought we could change the world, change the regime,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young man continues to talk to his mother: \u201cWe were able to talk, she realised her mistakes. We have a normal relationship, although the wounds of the past haven\u2019t gone anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While her son was in the Irkutsk pre-trial detention centre, Yelizaveta Podkamennaya visited him twice a month, bringing medicine. In one of his letters, Ilya criticised the SVTV publication for the headline<\/a> \u201cIn Irkutsk, a mother turned her 19-year-old son in for a sabotage case on the railway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mom didn\u2019t turn me in; she didn\u2019t call the FSB when I was free and say, \u2018My son is a terrorist,\u2019\u201d he wrote. \u201cShe only told everything during interrogations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilya Podkamenny believes that he will not have to serve his entire sentence: \u201cI think by the end of 2025, this madness will end, and I\u2019ll be free, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olga\u00a0Romashova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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