In Odessa, a repeat arsonist was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sabotage

The Khadzhibey District Court of Odessa sentenced a Ukrainian citizen accused of sabotage at a railway infrastructure facility to 10 years in prison with confiscation of property.

As noted in the court’s verdict, in September 2024, the man found a job posting on Telegram.

In exchange for monetary compensation, he was offered to set fire to facilities of the Odesa Railway. On September 29, he doused a relay cabinet at the “Odesa-Holovna” railway station with a flammable liquid and set it on fire. Railroad employees noticed the fire and extinguished it.

During the court hearing, the defendant stated that he does not admit guilt for the crimes he is charged with, did not commit the crime, and did not set fire to the railway cabinets. He also explained that he had been looking for work and, starting around August 2024, had been browsing job listings via the Telegram app because his mother was ill and he needed money for her medication.  And indeed, in August 2024, he began communicating with a contact who offered him money to set fire to the cars of employees at regional recruitment and social support centers—to prevent people from being drafted into the army—as well as transformers, and later, railway storage cabinets to trigger insurance payouts, for which he was promised 1,000 U.S. dollars per arson. At the same time, he was told that he did not need to destroy the cabinets, but only to make them appear damaged.

This person contacted him on his own; he does not know who this person is, since the phone number was hidden, and he does not know whether the caller is an employee of the Russian Federation’s special services. They communicated via text messages, and the caller sent voice messages. He hesitated for a long time, thought about the proposal, found an accomplice, and decided to agree to set the cabinets on fire, for which he was offered 100 U.S. dollars, but this caller told him that the cabinets were no longer needed and that he should set fire to a transformer instead, to which he agreed and carried out the arson in October 2024—an act for which he has already been convicted in a separate court ruling.

He did not commit the alleged offenses. As for the fact that his cell phone numberon the railroad tracks, he explains that he lives near the railroad tracks at the intersection of Rekordna and Poizdna Streets, which is about 500 to 1,000 meters from his home. In addition, he frequently walked along the paths past these lockers. He had access to his mother’s Oschadbank debit card, but he did not receive any funds on the card in connection with the arson.

The money deposited into his mother’s card was sent by relatives and other individuals to help pay for her medical treatment. During the search, he did indeed say that he had committed arson, but those statements referred to the arson of a transformer, for which he had already been convicted, and those statements do not pertain to the alleged offenses. In general, he understands that damaging railroad equipment can lead to negative consequences for its operation. He did not acknowledge the civil claim for compensation for property damage.

Ксенія Філіпчук