20-year sentence on copy-pasted charges against Ukrainian abducted from Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast

Russia’s Southern District Military Court in Rostov has sentenced Dmytro Tsypliakov to 20 years’ maximum-security imprisonment over a purportedly thwarted plan to blow up the Russian occupation ‘military command office’ in Vasylivka (Zaporizhzhia oblast).  There would be no grounds for calling a genuine attack on a legitimate military target ‘terrorism’, as the invading state is doing.  There are also too many elements that seem copy-pasted from one such ‘trial’ to another to feel any certainty that there ever was such a planned attack. 

Virtually nothing is known of Dmytro Tsypliakov, except that he is 33 and referred to by the Russian prosecution as a Ukrainian citizen.  Since Russia has made it near impossible to live on occupied territory without taking Russian citizenship, Tsypliakov may have been seized by the Russians earlier than 2024, as their reports suggest, or could have been abducted after managing to return to occupied territory.

The Russian prosecution claimed that, from March to August 2024, Tsypliakov had, “of his own initiative”, established contact with an officer of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence and had agreed to help the latter “in actions against the Russian Federation.” 

It was alleged that the Ukrainian had, in August 2024, received instructions to detonate a homemade explosive device near the Russian occupiers’ ‘military command office’ in Vasylivka. He had, supposedly, been sent instructions on how to create and assemble a bomb, and about methods of safety when working with it.  He was also supposed to have received a message telling him the whereabouts of a hiding place in Vasylivka, where he could find components of the explosive device.  

He was claimed to have, over a long period, observed the surroundings, intending to plant the explosive device and had, at around 10 a.m. on 16 August 2024, removed an RDX (or hexogen)-based explosive device supposedly filled with nuts, bolts, wired shells and other items.  He was, purportedly, “detained by enforcement officers soon after this.”

Tsypliakov himself denied the charges.  In the light of this, it is disturbing that there were, still, very few ‘court hearings’ and a significant number of occasions where hearings were cancelled because he had not been brought by prison convoys to the court.  He was charged with ‘involvement in a terrorist organization ‘, under Article 205.4 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code; with ‘planning a terrorist attack’ under  Article 205 § 3b; with ‘undergoing training in terrorist activities’ under Article 205.3 and with explosives charges under Article 222.1 § 4.

He was sentenced on 17 June 2025 by ‘judge’ Gurgen Serzhikovich Dovlatbekian to 20 years’ maximum-security imprisonment with the first three years in a prison, the harshest of Russian penal institutions.  The ‘court’ also imposed a steep 500 thousand rouble fine.

Russia is in breach of international law both through its invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory, and through its use of Russian legislation against and enforced deportation to Russian prisons of Ukrainians.  An attack on the aggressor state’s ‘military command’ would, therefore, be anything but ‘terrorism’.

In this case, as in virtually all on occupied territory, there is no way of verifying the claims made.  It is, nonetheless, noticeable how similar the indictment is to countless others, as is the supposed denouement, with an alleged ‘attack’ being thwarted by Russian ‘enforcement officers’.  It is seldom, if ever, clear when exactly the person was seized, with long periods of imprisonment before a person is brought before a court a near certain indicator that they have been subjected to torture in order to extract ‘confessions’.  That alone, the lack of certainty that they had an independent lawyer, and the fact that guilty verdicts and long sentences are guaranteed, mean that there can be no possibility that they received a fair trial.

See also:

Larysa Havrylenko  Russia sentences 64-year-old Melitopol woman to 16 years on idiotic ‘terrorism’ charges