On April 23, 2025, the RF Military Court of Appeal upheld the sentence of the Southern Area Military Court drawn to Yaroslav Zhuk, a resident of Melitopol: 14 years in custody with serving the first four years in prison and the remainder in the maximum-security regime penal colony.
The judgement was passed by Maksim Panin, a judge of RF Military Court of Appeal.
To remind: on June 25, 2024, the Southern Area Military Court (RF) found Yaroslav Zhuk guilty of committing an act of international terrorism and sentenced him to 14 years in the maximum security regime penal colony (with serving the first four years in prison). Articles for charging: RF CC 361-1 and 30-1.
To remind:
- In June, 2022, the Russian military abducted two Ukrainian volunteers, Yaroslav Zhuk and Illia Yenin, in occupied Melitopol. On July 12, 2022, Vladimir Rogov, the Russian-appointed “mayor” of Melitopol, posted a video with a staged confession by Yaroslav Zhuk, where he was saying that on June 17, 2022, he had “attempted to assassinate Yelena Shapurova, director of the city’s Department of Education”.
- Zhuk was moved to Crimea, charged with a crime under RF CC Article 361-1 (an act of international terrorism) and taken into custody.
- As Yaroslav Zhuk later said in his statement (this text is available to the Crimean Human Rights Group), he was tortured with electric current, forced to learn and record a confession on video, and held in the basement from June 17 to August 8, 2022.
- At the end of 2022, Nariman Dzhelial, deputy head of the Crimean Tatar People’s Mejlis, handed over a letter from the pre-trial detention center in which he reported that Yaroslav Zhuk, held in the Simferopol pre-trial detention center, was being still humiliated and physically abused. As a result of the torture, Zhuk partially lost his hearing.
- In March 2023, Zhuk was transferred to Rostov-na-Donu, where the Southern Area Military Court began proceedings against the Ukrainian.
