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On what basis did the jury find a defendant in the high-profile case of the terrorist group "Network"* guilty of murder in the Ryazan forest?.

Today, January 10, the jury of the Ryazan Regional Court announced its verdict in the case of Maxim Ivankin: he was found guilty of the murder of 19-year-old Ekaterina Levchenko and 22-year-old Artyom Dorofeev.

The double murder case in the Ryazan forest was opened in February 2020, when protests in support of the defendants in the "Network"* case were taking place across the country. received From 6 to 18 years in prison for participating in a terrorist organization. The convicted men themselves claimed that no terrorist organization existed, and that the criminal case against them was fabricated by FSB officers who extracted confessions through torture.

The version that Ivankin may be involved in the murder of Ekaterina Levchenko and Artyom Dorofeev, was published The online publication Meduza** published the report 11 days after the verdict. Activists viewed this as a provocation aimed at dampening support for the defendants in the "Network" case. Meanwhile, the defendants themselves, their families, and lawyers refrained from commenting.

The answer to the main question—where exactly Ivankin was on the presumed days of the murder in April 2017—has still not been given.

Journalists from Mediazona and NeMoskva followed the trial, which lasted nearly 11 months in the Ryazan Regional Court. In this joint project, we compiled the key evidence presented during 32 court hearings.

The plot of the accusation is largely based on a monologue Alexey Poltavets, who told Meduza in detail about his participation in the murder of his friends.

Poltavets himself is outside of Russia, and his fate has been unknown for several years. The case against him is being investigated separately, and he was not questioned in court: the prosecution limited itself to reading to the jury the interview published by Meduza and a transcript of the audio recording provided by the editorial staff.

In addition, the prosecutor questioned a former Meduza journalist* Maxim Solopov, who communicated with Poltavets via messenger. Question his colleague. Kristina Safonova It didn't work out in court because she left Russia in May 2021, two weeks after the Ministry of Justice designated her publication a foreign agent.

There are also confessions in the case. Maxim Ivankin — He gave them in September 2021 in Penal Colony No. 3 in Vladimir. Ivankin insists he signed the confession after being tortured and threatened by other prisoners. 

In the protocols of his three interrogations and confession it is said that Ekaterina Levchenko together with her boyfriend Artyom Dorofeev was involved to drug trafficking in Penza. In March 2017, Ivankin himself was drawn into this story, and was almost immediately—on the night of March 30–31, 2017—arrested while planting stashes along with Alexey Poltavets and Mikhail Kulkov (another defendant in the “Network”* case, who rented a two-room apartment together with Artyom Dorofeev). 

Fearing criminal prosecution, Ivankin and Poltavets fled to Ryazan. They spent their first few days living in the forest. A little later, Dorofeev and Levchenko, who were also afraid of prison, arrived to join them. All four moved in. to a rented apartment on the outskirts of the city, in a “gray multi-story dormitory-type building.”

“After some time, Dorofeev and Levchenko expressed a desire to return to Penza, — it is said in one of Ivankin’s interrogations. — Poltavets and I were afraid they would testify against us regarding drug trafficking. Poltavets started telling me they would turn us in and frame the man who provided us with housing. As a result, we made a decision "kill them."

They left the rented apartment under the pretext of a quick visit from the landlady. It was late April; Ivankin doesn't remember the exact date. They camped in a remote forest, five kilometers from the village of Lopukhi. They spent the night in sleeping bags under the open sky. They agreed to commit the murder the following morning: Poltavets killed Dorofeyev, and Ivankin killed Levchenko.

«I took my knife and stabbed her in the back several times. She screamed but remained standing. Then I walked up and stabbed her several more times in the neck. After that, she fell and showed no signs of life.“- described the murder of Ekaterina in his testimony.

In court, Maxim Ivankin said the confession was coerced from him in September 2021 at the hospital at Vladimir Correctional Colony No. 3. According to the defendant, prisoners beat him in the kidneys and head and threatened him with sexual violence.

He testified in court that the memorized testimony and the inability to orient themselves at the murder scene were evident in the video recording, which was made in the fall of 2021 during the verification of testimony in Ryazan and in the forest near the village of Lopukhi.

«I was warned that there would be landmarks, but if anything happened, the investigator would cough, and that would mean I was going in the wrong direction. So I kept turning to look at the investigator, who would show me which way to go, either with his finger, his eyes, or a gentle flick of his flashlight. — Ivankin clarified.

During the trial, this recording was not watched; the judge did not tell the jury about the violence and pressure in the colony. Natalia Kianovskaya also did not allow it, citing the fact that the panel should only examine the evidence, and not the question of how it was obtained. 

According to the judge, in his confession and interrogation reports, Ivankin stated that he was testifying voluntarily, in the presence of a lawyer, and that no one was pressuring him. During one interrogation, he drew the knife he used to kill Levchenko, and in another, the shovel he used to bury her body. 

Furthermore, the Investigative Committee refused to open a torture case against Ivankin, citing the fact that he was under constant medical supervision at the Vladimir prison hospital, that he was subjected to daily medical examinations using video surveillance, and that no injuries or signs of physical abuse were found on his body.

Ivankin himself reminded the court that investigators never interviewed him during the investigation into the complaint about pressure exerted on him.

Despite the ban, he still managed to tell the jury about the “torture colony in the city of Vladimir, where I had not confessed until that moment.” 

“This is certainly a direct impact on you, it is unacceptable,” Judge Kianovskaya addressed the jury, asking them not to take Ivankin's words into account. No evidence has been established that this could have happened. And this information has not been presented to you only because it has not been established.

Prosecution version. Artyom Dorofeev and Ekaterina Levchenko, along with their friends, used drugs and were also involved in their sale. They also knew that some members of the "Network" terrorist group* were also involved in the same activity, including Maxim Ivankin and Mikhail Kulkov—with the latter, Dorofeev rented a two-room apartment on Popov Street in Penza. got 10 years in prison for the "Network" case. 

Evidence of the prosecution. Drug use consequence confirms Correspondence between Artyom Dorofeev and Ekaterina Levchenko on VKontakte. For example, on October 4, 2016, Levchenko asked:

— Are you high there or something?

- No, loaf, I'm drunk. I'm a piano, - Dorofeev answered her and invited her to go for a walk.

- We'll get high again and fall asleep, — the girl refused.

Two days after this, Dorofeev wrote to her that “Let's go get some grass now", and a month later he admitted that he could no longer "Looking at buckwheat makes me sick already"" — according to investigators, it's about heroin. Levchenko's messages include phrases like "I need to smoke less, because every evening passes in a fog" or "grass teaches us to appreciate the present, that's what I realized".

The investigation also confirms Dorofeev's involvement in drug trafficking with fragments of his VKontakte correspondence.

— Tyoma is well, how are you? Can you help with anything? — for example, one of the users asked Artem on March 22, 2017.

- Hi, yeah, I'll ask around and write back later.“Dorofeev promised him and after a while clarified. In short, 300 rubles.

- Normal? — the interlocutor asked.

— yeah.

In their correspondence with Mikhail Kulkov, there are phrases like “"Today Sanya Grishin will probably take it, give me a little more", "Redhead has settled the score" and "how much do we need to do?"

Alexey Poltavets also mentioned in his correspondence with the activist that Levchenko and Dorofeev used drugs. Ilya Khesin, who was a member of the support group for the "Network"* defendants and got interested the disappearance of a young couple. He provided screenshots of his correspondence with Poltavets to the investigation.

«They're not fluffy at all either, Poltavets spoke about the couple in this correspondence. They were full of salt and signed up that they were ready to die for the movement, etc., and then We don't give a shit, we'll turn everyone in. It's clear that those who signed it are to blame, but they're not perfect either.».

A witness testified in court Andrey Cherkasov, who said he went to an apartment on Popov Street on April 3, 2017, to wish his friend Artyom Dorofeev a happy birthday. There, he met police officers, from whom he learned that Kulkov, Ivankin, and Poltavets had been arrested three days earlier while stashing drugs. They asked Cherkasov to act as a witness during the search.

There, in front of me, they [the police officers] confiscated some empty bags, foil, and electrical tape, recalled he. — All this was found in Kulkov’s room.

According to the witness, Dorofeev and Kulkov changed dramatically around the end of 2016, when Ivankin joined their company.

Defense objections. Maxim Ivankin testified in court that he learned of his friend Mikhail Kulkov's involvement in drug trafficking on March 30, 2017—the day he went for a walk with 16-year-old Alexey Poltavets, who had arrived in Penza from Omsk several months earlier. Kulkov joined them during the walk.

 — During the walk I learned that Misha Kulkov has, as they say, “weight” with him, — Ivankin said. — He went with some hard drugs, and we had a bit of a falling out over it because I'm not very particular about drugs; Penza is saturated with them. He said, "Don't rush it, everything will be fine." Misha's eyesight was probably worse than mine back then: he was standing near houses, lingering there for ages. It irritated me. And on his cell phone recorder [which he used to record the descriptions of the hiding places], you can hear me telling him the address of a house, so I could pinpoint it. But again, I wasn't telling him the address of a house to commit a crime, but so he could finish it quickly.

That same day, police arrested all three. Kulkov took full responsibility and was placed under house arrest, Ivankin was given a travel restriction, and Poltavets was released as a minor.

Ivankin confirmed that he had known Artyom Dorofeev since 2010—he and Kulkov studied together at the Penza Trade and Economics College. In 2016, Dorofeev introduced his friends to his girlfriend, Ekaterina Levchenko, and Ivankin occasionally visited them at their rented apartment.

The defendant assured the court he had no knowledge of Dorofeev and Levchenko's involvement in drug trafficking. He admitted to having tried drugs only a few times and was even prepared to tell the jury what they were. However, Judge Kianovskaya stopped him, deeming these details unnecessary.

Prosecution version. On April 4, 2017, Maxim Ivankin and Alexey Poltavets fled from Penza to Ryazan, fearing criminal prosecution for drug trafficking. They were also afraid of drawing the attention of law enforcement to the terrorist group "Network"*, of which they were both members.

Evidence of the prosecution. As she told during interrogations at the Investigative Committee Victoria Frolova — an acquaintance of several defendants in the "Network" case — she drove Ivankin and Poltavets from Penza in her Lada Granta.

We left at about 8 o'clock in the morning, — her testimony says. — They had two medium-sized hiking backpacks with them, but I didn’t see their contents.

Frolova did not appear in court to confirm this testimony: she did not answer phone calls and did not receive summonses sent to her registered address in Penza.

On April 4, 2017, her car actually got The vehicle was spotted on video cameras installed along 15 sections of the M5 "Ural" highway at 17:47 PM, 10 km from Ryazan, after which it turned around and returned to Penza around midnight.

I dropped them off at some bus stop [before entering Ryazan], - Frolova explained. — I didn't see where they went next.

Her boyfriend was also in the car. Ilya Shakursky, subsequently convicted for 16 years in the "Network" case*. Shakursky himself говорил about the trip in his testimony during the investigation and in court.

Frolova and Shakursky's mobile phones were registered that day by base stations of cellular operators installed in the area of ​​the M5 "Ural" highway.

Defense objections. Shakursky's testimony about his trip to Ryazan and the base station data contradict the materials of the "Network"* case. According to the lawyer Konstantin KartashovAccording to these materials, on April 4, 2017, Shakursky met in Penza with a man under the pseudonym "Kabanov," sat with him on a bench, and talked about his group, which "continues preparations for the revolution" and "strengthens its methods of conspiracy."

The transcript of their telephone conversations indicates that Shakursky goes to supermarket No. 173 to buy a charger for his phone, "The lawyer explained to the court. He admitted that someone other than the owner could have traveled to Ryazan and back with Shakursky's phone.

The court refused to take this objection into account and re-examine Shakursky. Judge Kianovskaya cited the fact that the "Network"* case file lacked a specific indication of the time of the meeting or the city in which it took place.

Ivankin himself call fleeing Penza was "the stupidest decision of his life." According to the defendant, he had never been to Ryazan and parted ways with Poltavets back in Penza, on April 1 or 2, 2017, right after he left home.

For about 20 days, give or take, maybe a little more, I lived with one person, Ivankin told the court. If I name this person now, I know what will happen to them. Therefore, in relation to this issue, I take Article 51 of the Constitution.

In Ryazan, the fugitives settled in an apartment found for them by a friend of the defendants in the "Network"* case.

Prosecution version. Artem Dorofeev and Ekaterina Levchenko also feared persecution and followed their friends to Ryazan, but investigators have no information about how or when they arrived. Ivankin's confession indicates that the couple arrived in the city a day or two before moving into the rented apartment, and before that, they lived with him and Poltavets in the forest. The search for a rental apartment in Ryazan for the four fugitives was handled by Olga Polynova — an acquaintance of the defendants in the “Network”* case, Ilya Shakursky and Dmitry Pchelintsev. 

Evidence of the prosecution. Maxim Ivankin's confession states that Dmitry Pchelintsev - later convicted for 18 years as the leader of the “terrorist organization ‘Network’* – gave him the number of Olga Polynova from Ryazan, who helped him find housing.

Polynova herself reported this in the spring of 2020 in a correspondence with her father on the social network Odnoklassniki. The social network provided this correspondence to the investigation.

«In 2017, a friend of mine asked me to let his friends spend the night at my place, — the girl wrote. — Because they needed a place to stay for a long time, they asked me to rent them an apartment. I did. Now it turns out they killed someone during that time, in the woods. An article about it was recently published, and I commented on it to journalists. One of the guys confessed that he and another, who is now in pretrial detention, committed the murder together on orders from a third person.».

Olga Polynova reported roughly the same thing in a correspondence with her friend. Anastasia Kosykh and aunts Olga Vasilyeva: "I was helping some guys rent a place in RZN, guys from another city. And while they were living there, they got someone wet in some forest somewhere." «I was asked to let the boys stay overnight for a long time. We rented them an apartment. While they were living there, they killed someone. I had nothing to do with it. I found out about it a couple of months ago and gave explanations about it to the media.».

It was not possible to interrogate Polynova herself: at the end of 2017, she became a witness in the criminal case "Network"* and has since been in hiding abroad.

The prosecution believes that in April 2017, Polynova found a two-room apartment for Ivankin, Poltavets, Levchenko, and Dorofeev on the outskirts of Ryazan—at 68 Nakhimov Street.

The owner of the apartment Svetlana Nazarova She told the court that in April Olga Polynova, who had once rented this apartment with her mother, called her:

She said she had a fight with her mother and needed a room to live in for one or two months.. After that, we met, I gave her the keys to the room, and she gave me five or six thousand rubles for a month's rent. After that, we called each other a few more times about everyday matters. At the end of April 2017, she called me again and said she was moving out. We met the next day, and she gave me the keys.

The fact that in April 2017 Polynova called Svetlana Nazarova and frequently visited her apartment is confirmed base station data, which are located near the house.

It's possible that the day of her last visit to the apartment—April 27—is the date of the murder of Artyom Dorofeyev and Ekaterina Levchenko. Polynova herself, speaking with a Meduza journalist** Maxim Solopov She said that “at some point she met them [Ivankin and Poltavets] who had returned from somewhere in the forest; they smelled strongly of fire; they were in a rather agitated emotional state.”

Defense objections: Maxim Ivankin claims he's never been to Ryazan, much less lived in a rented apartment there. He doesn't know Olga Polynova.

Defense attorney Konstantin Kartashov emphasized that Polynova was not questioned as part of the double murder case. However, she was questioned as a witness in the "Network"* case and stated at the time that she did not know Ilya Shakursky or Dmitry Pchelintsev.

 - This refutes Ivankin’s [confessional] testimony that Pchelintsev gave him Polynova’s number, — the lawyer emphasized.

Pchelintsev himself confirmed to the court during preliminary questioning that he did not know Olga Polynova. However, Judge Kianovskaya saw no need to question the witness in the presence of the jury.

Prosecution version. In the spring of 2017, several witnesses simultaneously saw Ivankin, Levchenko, and Dorofeev near house No. 68 on Nakhimov Street in Ryazan and even in the rented apartment itself. 

Evidence of the prosecution. Living in house number 68 on Nakhimov Street Tatyana Kalinina says that saw at her entrance to her building, Maxim Ivankin - she recognized him by his facial features and red sideburns.

There were some guys with him, just as young, — the witness told the court. — All boys, and one girl with them. We used to have a railing there, and there were a few people near it: some sitting, some standing. They don't live in our building.

On another day, a witness encountered a tall guy at the entrance to the building, whom she later identified as the deceased Artyom Dorofeev.

His hair was cut short, like a hedgehog, so short. He had a very round face and such heavenly blue eyes. He was handsome, very handsome. He was wearing camouflage, with a small pattern. We met at the door, nose to nose, - She clarified.

Her husband Igor Kalinin met Maxim Ivankin and Ekaterina Levchenko at the end of April - also at the entrance.

My wife and I were getting ready to go to the village. I went out, it was around five, just after five in the morning. I started the car to warm it up and stood on the curb smoking. There's a forested area near the house, and a group of people—five of them—came out. Three young men approached the house, talking loudly and in raised tones. [Ivankin] was waving his arms wildly. As they stood near the house, they called a taxi. At that moment, I thought it was a good thing they didn't bother me.

In addition, Ilya Shakursky, who traveled to Moscow through Ryazan in the twenties of April and helped Polynova pick up some things, saw Ivankin, Poltavets, Levchenko and Dorofeev in the apartment itself.

They didn't tell me how long they would stay there or whether they would go anywhere further. As far as I understood, they themselves didn't know at that point. He explained Shakursky to court.

Artem SalyukA man who lives next door to the rented apartment said that in the spring of 2017, young men were staying there and were very noisy. He once encountered two of them in the hallway, but didn't remember their faces.

Defense objections: Ivankin claims he never lived in a rented apartment in Ryazan. He also testified to the testimony of Artyom Salyuk, Igor, and Tatyana Kalinin. считает delusion and error.

He regards Ilya Shakursky's testimony as a slander he made in order to deflect suspicions of possible involvement in drug trafficking and to avoid losing financial support from those who assist the convicted defendants in the "Network"* case.

 “When this murder story started [in 2020], questions and, let’s say, threats started to be raised among the supporters, saying, ‘Boy, either you do this, or we’ll cut off your support,’” Ivankin said in court. I said, "I don't need any of this." And Shakursky, like me, is from a poor family, a villager too. Shakursky needs support.

Defense attorney Konstantin Kartashov reminded the jury that in her testimony in the Network* case, Olga Polynova stated that she did not know Shakursky: “This refutes Shakursky’s testimony that he went to the apartment with her at the end of April,” — says Kartashov.

Prosecution version. Dorofeev and Levchenko openly told their friends they wanted to return to Penza and surrender to the police. Their testimony could have harmed not only Ivankin and Poltavets, but also other members of the "Network" terrorist group* involved in drug trafficking.

Evidence of the prosecution. This is precisely the motive mentioned in Maxim Ivankin’s confession, which he himself insists he gave under duress.

Alexey Poltavets was the first to mention this motive in a conversation with Meduza journalists**: “They [Dorofeev and Levchenko] signed up not only for this topic [of drugs], but then, at the end, they started, I don’t know, to get involved in the activities [of the training of the “Network” participants]… They were supposedly brought to this [safe house] apartment, initiated into all sorts of these things.”

Poltavets insists that the impetus for the murder was Levchenko and Dorofeev's desire to surrender to the police: "We were planning to go ourselves, that's all."

Ivankin and Poltavets had a plan to go abroad to avoid criminal prosecution in Russia, — this is how Meduza journalist** Maxim Solopov recounted the content of his conversation with Poltavets in court. — But for some reason, they believed that Dorofeev and Levchenko would inevitably come to the attention of law enforcement, or at least tell them something as witnesses. So they urged Dorofeev and Levchenko to leave with them—first to Ukraine, and then disappear somewhere else. But Dorofeev and Levchenko were rather casual about all this and the drug business; they thought they might not be prosecuted. Ultimately, they refused to go into hiding; they wanted to return home to their parents and somehow resolve the matter within the legal framework. They told Ivankin and Poltavets that they would return home and not say anything bad about them. But Poltavets, Ivankin, and the rest of their comrades decided that they absolutely could not be released.

In the correspondence that was seized from the phone of a defendant in the Network* case Andrey Chernov, contains a message that refers to certain "civilians": "I've always been against them and told them [other members of the "Network"* community] this, and they said: 'Yeah, it's all fine.' And then, I deal with their issue so that they [the civilians] don't turn anyone in." According to Meduza** journalist Kristina Safonova, these words belong to Alexey Poltavets and they refer specifically to those killed.

Chernov responds that the effectiveness of recruitment becomes clear when “the buddy is either in the Network or eliminated.”

Defense objections: Maxim Ivankin completely denies his involvement in the murder and insists that his confession was extracted under torture.

He suggested that questions about the true motives for the murder be directed to Alexey Poltavets, who, in his opinion, may indeed be involved in the deaths of Levchenko and Dorofeev. To support his theory, Ivankin cites an interview with Victoria Frolova, who lived with Poltavets in Ukraine from 2017 to 2019. And to whom Poltavets allegedly I told, who committed the murder alone.

Ivankin suggested that Poltavets had framed him in order to absolve himself of guilt and obtain political asylum abroad.

— During this so-called investigation conducted by journalists, Poltavets begins to be asked uncomfortable questions, and he begins to put all the blame on me,  — Ivankin shared his thoughts with the jury. "After this version, of course, everyone left Poltavets alone. Attention shifted."

Prosecution version. To lure Levchenko and Dorofeyev out of their rented apartment and kill them in a remote forest, Ivankin and Poltavets concocted a plot involving the unexpected arrival of their landlady. They had chosen a forested area near the village of Lopukhi, 20 km from Ryazan, in advance. They got there by public transportation and hitchhiking, then walked a long distance.

Evidence of the prosecution. In April 2017, a resident of the village of Lopukhi Svetlana Samoshkina She saw three young men walking down the street. Among them was a girl dressed in black with a hood and a backpack. She was later able to identify only one of the men—Maxim Ivankin.

I asked them: “Going for a walk?” — the witness recalled during questioning in court. — They were wearing black jackets, they didn't hear me. It was only later that they told me they were wearing headphones. But one of them turned to me; he heard me. He was the taller one, walking on the far side. I only saw his gaze. I didn't like his gaze: so serious. Like a wolf's gaze. I remember: he had these red sideburns.

That same autumn, Samoshkina learned that the buried body of a young man had been discovered in the forest four kilometers from the village—a hunting dog had stumbled upon an arm protruding from the ground. It would only be a year and a half later that the investigation would establish that the deceased was Penza resident Artyom Dorofeev.

In March 2020, the remains of Kateryna Levchenko were found 72 meters from where her body was discovered. The search for them began after Meduza published Poltavets' confession.

Defense objections. Ivankin claims he's never been to the village of Lopukhi or the forest at the murder scene—except for his participation in the investigative experiment. He believes witness Samoshkina was mistaken in her testimony.

However, Ivankin refused to name the place where he actually was in April 2017 in court.

Prosecution version. It was Alexey Poltavets, and no one else, who gave an interview to Meduza journalists**, in which he admitted to having committed the double murder together with Maxim Ivankin.

Evidence of the prosecution. Journalist Maxim Solopov is convinced that the interview was given namely Alexey Poltavets. 

Once I identified him from a video recording, there was a video call option, - He explained Solopov to the court. He was mentioned in the terrorism case files as a witness arrested for drug trafficking. And there were some distinctive physical features: a bulbous nose, protruding ears. Quite distinctive features.

The journalist also said that he compared the voice of his interlocutor with the audio recording of the interview that Poltavets gave Ukrainian radio station in the summer of 2018.

He can also be identified quite confidently by his voice, — Maxim Solopov emphasized.

The fact that the interviews with the Ukrainian radio station and the Meduza** journalists were given by the same person is confirmed by the findings of a forensic audio examination – for which the journalists provided the investigators with a recording of the interview.

Alexey Poltavets' voice was also identified by his brother. Vladimir Poltavets and a school teacher Tatyana Galeeva: "Even though he has matured, you can still feel the notes, you can hear his voice.”

Mother of Alexey Poltavets Oksana Poltavets admitted that "the voice is similar, but I can't say for sure because there's some kind of accent, some letters are pronounced with a Ukrainian accent».

According to testimony from Meduza journalists**, the interview was conducted by a man with intimate knowledge of the murder and its location. He spoke of a fallen tree near the overnight campsite, a ditch between the burial sites of Levchenko and Dorofeyev, improperly installed forestry signs, and a well in the village of Lopukhi.

These are things that could not be fully assembled from the case materials and open sources into a picture that would be confirmed by the words of other, indirect witnesses, and the totality of all available facts, He explained Solopov to the court. When they were burning [the dead's] belongings, he noticed that Dorofeev or Levchenko's backpack had a badge similar to the Swiss flag—it's a brand of hiking clothing or equipment. He said burying the bodies was difficult because the shovels were small, almost like garden shovels.

According to his colleague Kristina Safonova, a few days after the interview was published, Poltavets sent a diagram that helped criminal investigators locate Ekaterina Levchenko's burial site.

Defense objections. Lawyer Konstantin Kartashov doubts the credibility of Poltavets' testimony. He emphasized that the young man was never questioned as part of the criminal case, his identity has not been properly established, and the circumstances of the interview are unknown. It is also unclear whether Poltavets was under any pressure at the time.

— Any interested person could have introduced himself as Alexey Poltavets- считает advocate. - We disagree with this testimony and believe it has nothing to do with Poltavets. They [the Meduza journalists**] didn't interview him. There was no interview with Poltavets. Or it wasn't Poltavets.

He also recalled a Penza police officer Roman Uzbyakov, who searched for Levchenko's remains in the Ryazan forest and later told investigators during questioning that "the graphic image sent by [journalist] Safonova did not actually correspond to the location where Levchenko's remains were discovered." According to the diagram sent, the remains were to be searched within a 100-meter radius northwest of where Dorofeev's body was found, but they were found 100 meters to the southwest.

In refusing to question the police officer, the judge explained that his testimony was procedural in nature, as it described the search for remains. The jury's job, however, is solely to establish the crime and evaluate the facts.

Prosecution version. The remains of Artyom Dorofeev and Ekaterina Levchenko were discovered in the forest near the village of Lopukhi.

Evidence of the prosecution. In November 2017, the body of an unknown man was found buried in a forest near the village of Lopukhi. It was only in April 2019 that DNA tests, including independent ones commissioned by the parents, confirmed the identity of the deceased as Artyom Dorofeev, a resident of Penza.

Dorofeev's identity is also confirmed by fingerprints recovered from the three remaining fingers of his left hand. Furthermore, the parents identified items found on the body.

The dark-colored sweater definitely belonged to Artyom, I even have photos of him wearing it, рассказал the father is in court Alexander Dorofeev, after which these photographs were shown to the jury.

Mother Nadezhda Dorofeeva identified a silver chain that was listed in the inventory, but disappeared from the Ryazan morgue under unclear circumstances.

In addition, both of Dorofeev’s parents identified a black nylon vest with the inscription RainbowInvestigators found it in a pit 72 meters from Artyom's burial site. Bones belonging to Ekaterina Levchenko were also discovered there. The vest had two stab wounds on its surface, caused "by an object with a blade estimated to be 15-25 mm wide." Traces of human blood were present on the hood lining, and headphones were found in the pocket. Investigators suspect that Ekaterina Levchenko may have worn the vest on the day of the murder.

“She often wore Artyom’s clothes and always wore headphones,” confirmed her mother Tatyana Levchenko.

Two meters from the vest, the remains of a knitted scarf, which the victim wore when she left the house, were found.

At the murder scene, which was combed step by step, found Two small garden shovels without handles and traces of a fire with pieces of burnt metal and plastic. Experts later concluded that these were buttons and rivets, most likely from burned clothing and backpacks.

At the scene of the murder, several coins, a swollen mobile phone battery, pills, a tube with the remains of hand cream, a metal spoon, a zipper from a cosmetic bag, two feminine hygiene tampons, two fragments of fabric with metal rivets, the remains of a burnt sweatshirt and a knitted T-shirt, a yellow-green cord, and a metal badge from a backpack with the inscription "Ellehammer" with traces of strong thermal exposure were found.

One of the fragments of fabric found has a metal ring with the repeating inscription "TRN 1961" - this is the brand of the "Terranova" store, where, according to Tatyana Levchenko, her daughter often bought clothes.

The fact that the discovered skeletal remains belong to Ekaterina Levchenko is also confirmed by DNA tests. 

Defense objections. Maxim Ivankin completely denies any involvement in the murders of Artyom Dorofeyev and Ekaterina Levchenko. The defendant and his defense attorney have not commented on whether their remains were actually found in the forest.

Prosecution version. Forensic experts do not rule out the possibility that Levchenko and Dorofeev were killed exactly as Poltavets described in his interview with Meduza** and as recorded in Ivankin's confession.

Evidence of the prosecution. After Poltavets' interview was released, forensic experts re-examined the murder scene and verified his claim that Dorofeev was shot in the head with a Saiga rifle. examined Trees within a seven-meter radius of the body's discovery were searched. Three mechanical injuries were found on the trunks of two birch trees. A forensic ballistic examination concluded that these injuries were caused by a shot from a 12-gauge hunting rifle. Their surfaces contained numerous particles of copper, lead, and sulfur, which could be the product of a gunshot.

Copper and antimony were also found on items removed from Dorofeev's body. Experts say the antimony particles indicate the shot was fired at close range.

This is consistent with Poltavets' claims that he shot Dorofeev with a Saiga carbine.

However, it was not possible to establish a direct connection between the gunshot and the "multifragmentary comminuted" skull fracture "due to putrefactive changes." Several medical specialists, however, suggested that Dorofeev could indeed have died after being shot in the face with a carbine and having his throat slit—a 19-cm-long, linear, horizontal wound with loose edges was found on the body's neck, penetrating to the spinal column.

Ekaterina Levchenko's remains were discovered only in 2020—almost three years after the murder. Experts were unable to determine the exact cause and time of her death "due to the complete skeletonization of the skeletal remains." However, they noted that the killer could have inflicted stab wounds "without trauma to the bone structures," which generally corresponds to Maxim Ivankin's confession.

“In other words, it is neither possible to rule out nor to confirm that Levchenko’s death was caused by double exposure to a stabbing or cutting object,” — the experts summed up.

Defense objections. Lawyer Konstantin Kartashov emphasizes that in all their reports, forensic experts refused to name the exact cause of death, citing putrefactive changes and skeletal changes in the remains.

Only two conclusions contain suggestions that Dorofeev's death could have occurred after a gunshot to the head and a knife wound to the neck, and Levchenko's death after several stab wounds.

— Such an expert opinion is not worth a penny,  — Kartashov believes. — There are no clear indications of the cause of death, the mechanism of injury, or damage to specific vital organs. It essentially says that if a person is stabbed, they may die. Or they may not... Our forensic expert didn't conduct any necessary research. He simply confirmed a well-known fact.

No traces of Ivankin's or Poltavets' DNA were found at the murder scene.

Prosecution version. Artyom Dorofeyev may have been killed with a Saiga rifle belonging to Maxim Ivankin. Ekaterina Levchenko was killed with a knife that also belonged to Ivankin.

Evidence of the prosecution. Rosgvardia permits indicate that Maxim Ivankin owned two 12mm Saiga carbines and a 9mm IZH traumatic pistol. He acquired all of these weapons in 2016.

Ivankin's confession is approvedThat he personally sawed off the barrel of one of the carbines—and did so with a hacksaw found in a rented apartment in Ryazan. And that Poltavets later killed Artyom Dorofeev with this sawed-off shotgun.

In this testimony, Ivankin also admitted that he killed Ekaterina Levchenko using his tourist knife with a blade length of about 14 cm.

According to this testimony, he sawed up both carbines and buried them in different parts of Ryazan. He threw the knife out of the window of a commuter train on the way to Moscow. Investigators never found either the weapon or its parts. 

Defense objections. According to Ivankin, the first Saiga jammed frequently and "fired every other time, like Ron Weasley's wand." The second carbine jammed less frequently.

He claims he last saw his weapon in late March 2017—he left it at Kulkov and Dorofeev's rented apartment, after which he was arrested for drug trafficking and fled Penza. He also claims the weapon's subsequent fate is unknown.

Prosecution version. Maxim Ivankin left his army belt at the crime scene.

Evidence of the prosecution. At the murder scene discovered A brown leatherette belt with a star and anchor on a brass buckle. It may have belonged to Maxim Ivankin, who served in the Navy.

The investigation proves this with testimony. Maxim Zhulin, who was in pretrial detention with Ivankin in March 2020, his cellmate allegedly confessed to him killing a girl and a boy.

In the process of committing the murder and burying the bodies, Ivankin either lost or forgot his army belt with a large metal buckle, Zhulin told the jury in court.

Another defendant in the Network* case, Ilya Shakursky, also said that the belt found at the murder scene belonged to Maxim Ivankin.

I saw him wearing an army belt several times. He served in the Navy, I think he had an anchor [on the belt buckle], – he told the court.

According to him, Ivankin wore this belt with both camouflage pants and regular civilian pants.

Artyom Dorofeev also had a belt with an anchor—he also served in the navy. However, according to his mother, Nadezhda Dorofeeva, she buried the belt with her son.

A white belt with an iron buckle, with some kind of anchor on it. They'd put all sorts of signatures on the belt, people who served with him when he was demobilized. I buried that belt with him. Along with his uniform, she explained to the court.

Defense objections. Ivankin himself insists that he never had such a belt—after serving in the navy, he brought back a black leatherette belt, not brown.

Attorney Kartashov petitioned to show the jury photographs of Ivankin with this other belt, but the court did not accept them, as it considered that they were obtained through non-procedural means.

Ivankin's friend Mikhail Kulkov, also convicted in the "Network" case, testified in court that this Maxim Zhulin was a "supervisor" in the pretrial detention center, collaborated with the police and investigators, and carried out their instructions.

Prosecution version. Maxim Ivankin was hiding from investigators in Moscow, where he could have confessed to the murder to an acquaintance with whom he had lived for some time. 

Evidence of the prosecution. According to activist Ilya Khesin, who initiated the publication in Meduza**, talk of Ivankin's possible involvement in the murder began in the activist community after a girl from Moscow came to one of the trials in the "Network"* case. She allegedly told To Anna Shalunkina — to Dmitry Pchelintsev’s cousin — that Ivankin and Kulkov were hiding first in the attic of her house, and then lived in her apartment.

During their stay, they suffered a nervous breakdown, tried to cut their veins and confessed that their hands were covered in blood and that they had killed a man, Khesin retold the content of this story to the jury.

After this, Shalunkina allegedly passed Pchelintsev a note asking him to answer a question about his possible involvement in the murders of Levchenko and Dorofeev. He allegedly wrote, "I'm zero out of ten, and Ivankin is ten out of ten."

The Moscow resident in question may be Olga PechurinaIvankin and Kulkov don't deny knowing her. According to the Penza pretrial detention center, they even corresponded after their arrest.

Pechurina's mother Elena Mertz told investigators that in the summer of 2018, her daughter did indeed move two young men into her room who refused to show their passports.

Residents of neighboring apartments said that during this period they met a man in the entrance hall who “looked very much like” Ivankin.

Witness Marina Krupchak, whose apartment is on the top floor, clarified that in 2018, someone lived in the attic for three or four months: "They rustled, climbed, talked."

Defense objections. Anna Shalunkina, who became Ivankin's wife in 2020, saidto the court that she does not know Olga Pechurina, has never met her, and certainly has not heard from her stories about Ivankin’s suicide attempt.

Shalunkina also said that she did not pass on notes to her brother, Dmitry Pchelintsev, asking about his involvement in the murder.

During questioning by the investigator, Olga Pechurina confirmed that she knew Ivankin and Kulkov. However, she insisted that neither young man had ever lived in her Moscow apartment, had slit their wrists in her presence, and had never confessed to the murder.

According to Pechurina, she has never been to Penza. According to a response from the Federal Passenger Company, round-trip tickets to Penza were purchased in Pechurina's name in April 2019, but all were returned.

Prosecution version. Several correspondence messages discussing the murder and drug use, and mentioning a certain Pasha, have been added to the criminal case file. These include correspondence between activist Ilya Khesin and Alexey Poltavets, as well as correspondence between the deceased. According to investigators, Pasha is one of Maxim Ivankin's nicknames.

Evidence of the prosecution. The investigation showed the jury a letter from Maxim Ivankin, which he wrote from prison to Anna Shalunkina: "Maxim, the manager, works at the 'For You' restaurant. He knows me as Pasha. Ask him about the builder, Evgeny. They're friends. This Evgeny owes me 30,000 for roofing. Basically, shake him down. That'll pay for a lawyer at least. He also knows me as Pasha."

Administrator of the restaurant "For You" Maxim Fedosov confirmed to the court that he really did have a part-time job with “Pasha, who turned out not to be Pasha” – and he identified him as Maxim Ivankin.

He also worked with a certain Anton, whom the witness identified as Dmitry Pchelintsev, a defendant in the Network* case (Anton’s name also appears in the correspondence).

The director of the construction company also gave similar testimony. Evgeny Terentyev, who actually owed Ivankin money.

Defense objections. Lawyer Kartashov doubts the veracity of the correspondence between Khesin and Poltavets, since the investigation was only presented with screenshots of the messages.

Moreover, the correspondence is not presented in its entirety, and phrases are taken out of context.

Regarding these correspondence, the defense insists the investigators are mistaken, including the nickname of Alexey Poltavets, whom they call Boris. According to Kartashov, in 2017, the same Olga Polynova, who helped the fugitives rent an apartment in Ryazan, created a VKontakte account under the name "Boris the Cat."

Dmitry Pchelintsev also told the court that the pseudonym "Boris" was not used by Alexey Poltavets. He also disagreed with Ilya Khesin's assertion that Artyom Dorofeev used the pseudonym "Timofey."

According to Pchelintsev, "Boris" and "Timofey" are alive and currently at large. He declined to reveal their real names, however.

"I've simply received threats from these individuals. And since I'm still afraid they could harm me and my family, I wouldn't want to do this in open court."  - said Pchelintsev.

Maxim Ivankin revealed the name of the man who used the pseudonym "Boris" to the jury only on December 26, the final day of the trial.

— His last name is Grabov, and his first name is Artyom. As far as I know from FSB officers, he lives or lived in Moscow. — Ivankin insists.

The jury's closing arguments in the Ryazan forest murder case took place on January 9, the first working day after the New Year holidays. During the closing arguments, the parties summarized the evidence the jury had been reviewing for nearly a year. 

Maxim Ivankin did not make his final statement to the jury. 

*In January 2019, the Moscow District Court designated "The Network" a terrorist organization. The defendants in the case claim that such an organization never existed.

**On January 26, 2023, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation declared the online publication Meduza an undesirable organization whose activities pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation.