Alexandr Taranets
Alexandr Taranets, born 2001. Charges: Article 205.3, Russian Criminal Code (Receiving training for the commission of terrorist crimes); Article 205.5 part 2, Russian Criminal Code (Participation in the activities of a terrorist organization); Article 278, Russian Criminal Code (Violent seizure of power or alteration of the constitutional order); “The case of fifteen servicemen in the Aidar battalion”. Sentence (October 17, 2025): 20 years' imprisonment in a strict regime colony. Status: imprisoned; deprived of liberty since April 14, 2022; place of detention: Pre-trial detention centre No. 5, Rostov Oblast. Recognition: Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners — recognised as a political prisoner, September 13, 2024.
In brief
Military personnel · Terrorism cases
Sentence
20 years
imprisonment in a strict regime colony
Upheld June 2, 2026
Charges
- Article 205.3, Russian Criminal Code — Receiving training for the commission of terrorist crimes
- Article 205.5 part 2, Russian Criminal Code — Participation in the activities of a terrorist organization
- Article 278, Russian Criminal Code — Violent seizure of power or alteration of the constitutional order
Full wording of the charges
According to the investigators, he joined the 24th separate Aidar assault battalion, where, among other things, he conducted surveillance of servicemen of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), passed information to his command, and participated in combat operations in the Telmanovsky district of the DNR and Krymskoye settlement, Lugansk People's Republic, used automatic rifles and anti-tank grenade launchers, and "committed acts aimed at forcibly seizing power and changing the constitutional order of the "DNR" in the territories of the Republic "occupied by Ukraine."
Latest event
June 22, 2026 — added to the rosfinmonitoring list of “terrorists and extremists”
Recognition by rights defenders
- Recognised as a political prisoner — Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners, September 13, 2024
Timeline
· Added to the Rosfinmonitoring list of “terrorists and extremists”
· Removed from the Rosfinmonitoring list
· Appeal ruling
upheld
· Imprisonment begins
Pre-trial Detention Centre №5 (SIZO-5) of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation for the Rostov Oblast
· First-instance verdict
guilty verdict · 20 years
· Recognised as a political prisoner
Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners
· Preventive measure: pre-trial detention
· Persecution begins
The case of fifteen servicemen in the Aidar battalion
Criminal case
The case of fifteen servicemen in the Aidar battalion
- Case number
- 1-21/2025 (1-49/2024; 1-211/2023;)
Other defendants in the case
- Viacheslav Baidiuk — Imprisoned, 16 years
- Igor Gaiokha — Imprisoned, 18 years
- Vitalii Gruzinov — Imprisoned, 21 years
- Vladislav Ermolinskii — Imprisoned, 20 years
- Semen Zabairachnyi — Imprisoned, 20 years
- Sergei Kalinchenko — Imprisoned, 21 years
- Vitalii Krokhalev — Imprisoned, 16 years
- Vladimir Makarenko — Imprisoned, 18 years
- Roman Nedostupa — Imprisoned, 21 years
- Sergei Nikitiuk — Imprisoned, 20 years
- Taras Radchenko — Imprisoned, 20 years
- Dmitry Fedchenko — Imprisoned, 15 years
- Nikolai Chuprina — Imprisoned, 20 years
- Andrei Sholik — Imprisoned, 16 years
Thematic group: The case of military service in the Aidar Battalion
Write a letter
Facility: Pre-trial detention centre No. 5, Rostov Oblast
Address (in Russian, as written on the envelope)
344064, Ростовская область, г. Ростов-на-Дону ул. Тонельная, 4, ФКУ СИЗО-5 ГУФСИН России по Ростовской области, Таранец Александр Романович, 2001 г.р.
Details and sources
Full summary
Served in the Ukrainian Aidar battalion as a sniper. He was taken prisoner in the spring of 2022, was in the occupied territory of Zaporizhzhya and then the Donetsk region of Ukraine. He was forcibly filmed for a propaganda video. Later in court, Taranets said that he had been beaten beforehand. He was charged under a number of articles of the Criminal Code of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. After the Russian Federation declared the DNR part of its territory, the charges were reclassified in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: Taranets was accused of "participating in activities of a terrorist organisation," "forcible seizure of power," and "receiving training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities." Human rights activists note that as a prisoner of war he must not have been held criminally liable for actual participation in hostilities, and, in addition, consider the charges absurd. On October 17, 2025, Taranets was sentenced to 20 years in a "strict regime colony."
All fields of the record
- Citizenship
- Ukraine
Other people prosecuted under Article 205.3, Russian Criminal Code
Under the same article, not necessarily in the same case.