The bottom line of the case
The October 8, 2022 explosion on the Crimean Bridge is one of the most high-profile crimes of recent years. The court punished eight people with the harshest sentence available. But reading the case file — now published in full — shows something else: the investigation never established who organized the bombing, who built the explosive device, or who knew its route. Below are documents and facts only, each linked to its primary source.
1. Investigation: versions of guilt were collected, evidence of innocence was ignored
The preliminary investigation took over two years (October 8, 2022 — November 22, 2024) and 118 volumes. Throughout that time, investigators consistently built versions of the eight defendants' involvement — yet not a single defense motion aimed at verifying their non-involvement was granted. Dozens of refusals to order independent expert examinations — from computer-technical to polygraph — are collected in the “Refused examinations” section.
91 of 92 victims declined to review the case materials, using identical template statements — the first dated October 16, 2022, just eight days after the blast. Separately collected: 15 questions that remain unanswered and 77 documented contradictions and legal flaws in the verdict and the case file.
2. Prosecutor's office: 118 volumes in ten days
On November 22, 2024, the investigator forwarded the case to the Prosecutor General's Office. On December 2, 2024, First Deputy Prosecutor General Razinkin approved the indictment (vol. 124 ↗). On December 9, 2024, the case reached the Southern District Military Court.
Seven working days passed between the referral and the approval of the indictment. During that time the prosecution was supposed to study 118 volumes — some 30,000 pages — and verify every piece of evidence for relevance, admissibility and reliability. Every contradiction the defense had documented over two years remained in the case unevaluated.
3. Court: the trial was closed on the basis of a single FSB letter
Open court proceedings are a principle enshrined in Article 241 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code. A trial may be closed only on the exhaustive list of grounds in Part 2 of that article: protecting state or other legally protected secrets; cases of crimes against sexual inviolability; protecting the private life of participants; and the security interests of trial participants and their relatives. Part 2.1 of Article 241 additionally requires the court's ruling to specify the concrete factual circumstances on which the decision is based.
The sole document on which the trial was closed was an FSB letter dated January 15, 2025, stamped “For official use only” (vol. 125 ↗). It claims that Ukrainian special services “plan to carry out acts of intimidation” against trial participants. Who was threatened, by whom, and in what way — the letter does not say; no supporting materials were presented to the court.
On February 12, 2025, all defense lawyers and all eight defendants objected to closing the trial. Lawyer Kunayev pointed out: “All information about the case is already in the public domain” (vol. 128 ↗). Lawyer Benyaminova noted that in over two years of investigation not a single witness or victim had reported any threats. The defendants themselves asked to keep the trial open: “Let people see and hear. We have nothing to hide” (Zlob).
The court, “deliberating on the spot”, closed the trial under para. 4, Part 2, Article 241 of the Criminal Procedure Code (vol. 128 ↗). From that moment until the verdict, official court statements were society's only source of information about the proceedings.
4. Verdict: eight life sentences in a single case
On November 27, 2025, the Southern District Military Court (presiding judge Opanasenko) sentenced all eight defendants to life imprisonment, with fines of 500–700 thousand rubles and joint civil claims exceeding 7 billion rubles. Eight life sentences in one case is unprecedented in modern Russian judicial practice.
None of the convicted pleaded guilty. None of them had been on the run: all were detained where they lived and worked. The organizers and perpetrators of the bombing, described by the investigation as “unidentified persons”, remained unidentified in the verdict as well.
5. What comes next
The defense has filed appeals; the case is before the Military Court of Appeal (see the “Appeal” section). All case materials — 132 volumes, the verdict, audio recordings of the hearings — are published on this site in full, so that anyone can verify every conclusion against the primary source rather than a retelling.
We proceed from the assumption that truth is verified by documents. That is why the case is published in its entirety: sooner or later these materials will be examined in courts that will treat them more carefully — and the innocent will be acquitted.