The court found that Ananyev, together with Vladimir Bodnar and Oksana Shevchenko, belonged to an underground group that, on orders from Ukrainian special services, prepared an attack in Simferopol on Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-installed head of annexed Crimea, according to the Federal Security Service (FSB).

Investigators said Ananyev rented a non-residential premises equipped with a video camera overlooking the roadway and gave the group's leader access to the feed. Security services announced they had prevented the "terrorist attack" on February 5, 2024.

Ananyev denied guilt. He did not dispute that in December 2023 he rented premises in Simferopol and hired workers, including to install video surveillance, but said the project was a kitchen with delivery at a neighboring cafe. He said the seized explosives were not his.

Before the hearing, Ananyev told Mediazona that any real prison term — "whether two or twenty-two years" — would be a "death sentence" for him.

Defense lawyer Refat Yunus argued in closing that investigators neither seized nor examined the camera itself, did not question the workers, and did not carry out fingerprint or biological examinations of the package containing the explosives. According to Bodnar's testimony, he and Ananyev had not known each other before their detention. The prosecution cited the convictions of Bodnar and Shevchenko as evidence of guilt, the defense lawyer noted.

Bodnar and Shevchenko signed pre-trial cooperation agreements and their cases were heard under a special procedure. In 2025 they were sentenced to 13 and 10 years in a penal colony respectively.

Crimea.Realities describes Ananyev as a land activist: since the early 2000s he helped Crimean farmers privatize plots. After the annexation of the peninsula he lived in Kyiv, and in November 2023 he traveled to Kerch to visit his parents' grave, from where he went to see an acquaintance in Simferopol.

According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, his health problems worsened in Rostov's pre-trial detention center No. 5, where he was effectively denied medical care. At hearings he leaned on a cane and asked for a doctor to be called.

The verdict has not entered into force and can be appealed at the Appellate Military Court.