Two collaborators from the Russian-occupied territories on trial in Moscow
Two collaborators from the occupied territories of Ukraine are on trial in Moscow, one for large-scale looting and the other for abuse of power.
The first is the former “mayor” of Makiivka, Donetsk region, Serhiy Goloshchapov. As Novyny Donbasu noted, Goloshchapov was first detained in December 2021, “on suspicion of committing acts of corruption”.
It is not known when and how he was released: in November 2023, the media reported spotted him already as an “adviser to the minister of industry and trade” of the Donetsk “republic”.
And in December 2023, Goloshchapov – and another “official” – was detained for the second time, for allegedly stealing equipment from the AzovElectroStal plant in Mariupol, for which he is now on trial in Russia.
Media reports on the detention referred to the removal, scrapping, and sale of the plant’s workshops between January and June 2023. This means that Goloshchapov was supposed to be an “advisor to the minister” at least from the beginning of 2023.
At the same time, in May 2024, Goloshchapov was “convicted” in Donetsk for bribery on a large scale, according to the Russian media outlet Mediazona, whose correspondent was present at the “trial” in Moscow.
At the hearing on September 10, Goloshchapov’s detention was extended due to the alleged difficulty of investigating amid the armed hostilities, as the investigator explained, according to Mediazona.
At the same time, the former “official” recanted his earlier confession at the hearing. According to Goloshchapov, he took care of de-mining the plant and tried to resist its theft.
At the hearing, he made it clear that he considered the criminal prosecution to be a reprisal. “Whom did I cross the road? What did I do wrong? Maybe I need to apologise to someone?” Mediazona quoted Goloshchapov as saying.
The former “mayor” said he was ready to “join the Z-brigade, the stormtroopers” in exchange for his freedom.
Also recently, the case of Denis Zakhozhykh, a former head of a bureau of the Investigative department of the Russian Investigative Committee in the occupied part of the Kherson region, was brought to the “court” in Moscow. According to the Russian Kommersant media outlet, he used for personal purposes an SUV that was listed as material evidence in the case of another arrested “official”.
The Toyota Land Cruiser used by Zakhozhykh “without the purpose of stealing” was registered to the mother of the former “acting minister of health of the Kherson region” Vadym Ilmiev.
Ilmiyev was suspected of misappropriating funds allegedly allocated by the occupation authorities for salaries to doctors at a Kherson hospital between September 2022 and April 2023. The Ukrainian armed forces liberated Kherson in November 2022.
In October 2023, the then 41-year-old Zakhozhykh, who had coordinated the investigation into Ilmiev’s case, retired, according to Kommersant, allegedly due to the revelations of his abuse. In December, he was allegedly detained in Crimea but then released for the duration of the investigation.
According to Kommersant, Zakhozhykh is yet out of prison, but in May 2024, he was charged with “abuse of office” for mercenary motives, which guarantees a prison term of three to ten years if convicted.