​​The Ukrainian Sergei Okrushko is being tortured in Russia
He is charged with sabotage at an oil processing plant

The Ukrainian Sergei Okrushko was arrested on 28 July while trying to leave Russia for Kazakhstan. The FSB suspected him of sabotage on an oil processing plant in Samara, where Sergei worked, and an explosion had occurred there on that day. The very next day a court sent Okrushko to a pre-trial detention centre.

During the court hearing on pre-trial detention measures, Sergei Okrushko said that he holds an anti-war position and had committed the act for political reasons.

The Kuybyshev oil processing plant where the blast occurred is the largest enterprise in the Samara district, processing around 7 million tonnes of oil per year. The plant specialises in the production of fuel for all kinds of means of transport, from automotive to maritime.

According to the investigation, the explosion cost more than 30 million roubles (€ 285 000). There were no casualties.

On 1 August the lawyer Zakhar Lebedev, working with "Solidarity Zone", visited Sergei Okrushko in the pre-trial detention centre and received consent to provide him with legal representation. However, on 3 August Sergei rejected his defence lawyer, while the latter drew attention to new serious bruises on the body of the suspect.

According to the lawyer Lebedev: "I asked Sergei to specify aloud in the presence of the investigator and the state-appointed lawyer, whether he indeed gives his consent for me to defend him, as indicated in the document that he had written himself in the pre-trial detention centre. In a voice that was almost trembling, Sergei quietly said that he wanted to use the lawyer he had previously [i.e., as appointed by the investigator], so as not to drag out the process".

The lawyer Lebedev asked for a written confirmation of his dismissal, and Okrushko wrote that he was withdrawing his earlier consent for legal representation.

"At the moment when Sergei sat writing this, I noticed that his left arm, across most of his shoulder and forearm, was purple: it was clear that these were serious bruises that had not been there on 1 August, when I visited him in the pre-trial detention centre. When I asked where he had got these bruises from, Sergei replied without thinking, 'In detention'. When I followed up by asking why he had not had them when I visited him in pre-trial detention, Sergei answered uncertainly that they had only just appeared."

On 7 August the lawyer Zakhar Lebedev tried to visit Sergei Okrushko in the pre-trial detention centre in Samara. However, the lawyer was refused entry to visit the accused. At first the staff referenced instructions from the investigator, and then they claimed that Orkushko was not in the pre-trial detention centre.

We are convinced that between 1 August and the following day, Sergei Okrushko was tortured in the pre-trial detention centre or in another place in order to make him turn down an independent lawyer. On 7 August, the lawyer was refused entry so that he could not document traces of torture. Alas, at this stage of proceedings, those responsible for these crimes have succeeded in their aim. However, we will be redoubling our efforts to provide Okrushko with proper legal defence and support.

We ask independent media outlets and human rights organisations to spread information about the case of Sergei Okrushko and the torture it is likely he is now undergoing. Publicity may help protect the prisoner.

✉️ Also you can help Sergei by writing:

443022, Samara, Sadovyi proezd, d. 22, SIZO-1,
Okrushko Sergei Aleksandrovich, DOB 1981

❓ If you have questions, email us to: solidarity_zone@riseup.net

#english

Generally, we cannot show you anything of what the donations we receive are used for. But sometimes it’s possible to show just a little bit.

This is a seed box. You know, one of those to be slung at your balcony, fence or window for planting flowers? Right. The thing is, this one is to be filled with something a little different than soil, and is intended for planting something else, not flowers. It’s displayed upside down on the photo, and some distortion effects are added so as to spoil the Big Brother’s attempts to find anything like a piece of evidence here.

Of course, we are not going to tell you «when», «what» and «where». So stay in tune for the upcoming hashed announcements.

To support the people who are busy preparing interesting things, you can make a cryptocurrency contribution following this guideline: https://t.me/BlackBridgeSupport/218

If someone who has never been to Russia asks how it feels to live there in 2023, a complete, thoughtful answer can take hours and pages of text. The Telegram format is unlikely suitable for such volumes, so we are going to try and give you a brief summary from within.

First of all, it's necessary to underline that if you are a staunch (or not so staunch) supporter of the Russian President, your life just goes on as it did before. The same is true if you don't support the "Father of the Nation" at all, but somehow you manage to disable your brains and carry on pretending that nothing extraordinary happens. Indeed, you still have food products in your local store, your job, your car, your home, your iPhone, several loans you have to pay out, the same primitive (more or less) entertainment activities and so forth. You even still have got the opportunity to fry your belly under the hot sunlight of Turkey, Egypt or Thailand. What else can you dream of?

But when neither of that is the case for you, when you cannot force yourself to stop thinking, when pretending that everything's just fine does not work - well, that's where you start facing problems. And the first and most important one is loneliness. You are totally alone. There is no way you can speak out on your views and opinions in public, as it dramatically increases your chances to meet the law enforcement system. You cannot talk about it with your colleagues at work, for you never know which one of them is going to squeal on you. In most cases, it is not helpful to talk to your friends either, because they generally tend to avoid such conversations. Finally, you often get no moral support even from your family. Your parents are "patriots", and that immediately puts a thick wall between you and them, when any attempt to argue leads to quarrels and almost hysterical reactions. Your conversations with them become hollow and abstract, and it only makes your depression deeper. You may consider yourself lucky, if you have at least someone (spouse, brother, sister) with whom you can share what bothers you. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, even that is not an option.

Next, legal aspect. You find yourself in a situation when the list of your rights keeps shrinking, while your obligations grow. Remember that cliche from Hollywood movies, "You have the right to remain silent... anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law"? Well, remaining silent is about the only right you still have got in Russia, and the question is for how long. Anything you say, write or post may be used against you, and that is not a figure of speech.

This, naturally, involves the certainty aspect. Certainty is a luxurious privilege you are not entitled to. You cannot be sure about how many people out there are like you. They are alone, just like you, and will never display their true attitude, just like you. You cannot be sure whether you violate the law with your actions or words, as new laws are printed faster than banknotes. Speaking of the banknotes, by the way, there is no certainty about them either. You never know how much value the money will lose tomorrow, and there is no telling when it can literally turn to toilet paper. This is not to mention that the System can deprive you of your money in a single click by just freezing your bank accounts.

Second part >>

Now, safety aspect. In short words, you're not safe here.

<< First part

Traveling by plane is unsafe, for you never know how well that plane you are flying is maintained (maybe not maintained at all, our airlines have already begun to cannibalize idle aircraft for spare parts). Besides, the recent events brought up a brand new risk that your aircraft might be simply brought down by an erroneously launched SAM missile (this is not a joke, see the recent news reports about the situation in the air space around Moscow). Hanging around too much can also be unsafe, because who knows where and when you run into a war veteran with PTSD, totally unpredictable and possibly carrying something lethal with them. This is already a serious problem, which is aggravated by the issue that a significant part of these veterans is represented by ex-convicts that returned home from the battlefront and were granted amnesty for their participation in the war. Finally, just being a male within the age from 18 to 60 is unsafe, too, because the System can decide at any random moment that it wants you for its army. Of course, you still have got some options to avoid this fascinating obligation, but it, firstly, it depends on multiple different aspects, and, secondly, it does not add up anything to your safety at all.

As we said in the beginning, this topic is too large to be described within a single article, so let's try and sum things up. In Russia you are alone, you are unsafe, you can be deprived of your money, profession, freedom and life at any given moment, and nobody around gives a damn about that. Your scarce options are: a) disable your thinking abilities, secure a deal with your conscience and pretend nothing special happens around you; b) emigrate to another country; c) commit a suicide; d) begin to do something that makes some sense. And this is where you come out of your small, cozy zone of comfort and start thinking for real.

​​Who are Roman Nasryev and Aleksey Nuriev?

On 10 April, the Central District Military Court at Yekaterinburg sentenced Roman Nasryev and Aleksey Nuriev, who live in Bakal in the southern Urals, each to 19 years imprisonment. They will serve four years in prison and the remaining 15 years in a strict regime penal colony.

Roman and Aleksey received this harsh punishment for firebombing an administrative building that houses a military registration office.

On 11 October 2022 Roman and Aleksey tried to firebomb the military registration office, since there is no fully-fledged military commissariat in Bakal. The act was symbolic, carried out in response to military mobilisation, and to indicate their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine. As a result of the firebombing, no-one was injured and there was minimal impact on the building. A female security guard was able to put out the fire with a blanket and five litres of water. A window, and some linoleum, were damaged.

Roman and Aleksey were arrested a few hours later. At first, they were charged with deliberate destruction of property by means of arson (Article 167 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code). But after the Federal Security Service (FSB) intervened, the much more serious charge of “committing a terrorist act” (Article 205) was brought.

Some time later, Nasryev and Nuriev were also accused of “undergoing training in order to carry out terrorist activities” (Article 205.3). The evidence of this “training” was a video, found on their phones, which showed them making Molotov cocktails and throwing them on deserted waste ground.

In court, Nasryev did not deny involvement in the firebombing, but rejected the accusation of “terrorism”, and pointed out that he had not undergone any “training in order to carry out terrorist activities”. He drew the court’s attention to the fact that anyone can throw a bottle with flammable liquid in it: no specialist knowledge is required. Nuriev, too, refused to admit to being guilty of “terrorism”.

On 14 July, the human rights defence initiative, “Support Political Prisoners”, organised by Memorial under internationally-agreed criteria, recognised Roman Nasryev and Aleksey Nuriev as political prisoners.

Before his arrest, Aleksey worked for the Ministry of Emergency Situations, as a section chief in the fire and rescue service. Roman worked as a driver for an outsourced security firm. Both friends played in the rock band Room 32. Aleksey wrote poetry; Roman’s great enjoyment was music and, as a hobby, he learned to play a large number of different instruments. Both of them played sports. Roman enjoyed fixing old cars, and fishing.

Lawyers for Roman and Aleksey have lodged an appeal against their conviction, but the case has so far not been sent on to the court of appeal, and no date has been set for it to be reviewed. Until the sentence enters into legal force, Nasryev and Nuriev will be detained at the PFRSI (a premises, functioning as a pre-trial detention centre) IK-2 in Yekaterinburg. You can write letters to them there.

We urge you to support Roman and Aleksey! In prison it is very important to know that you are not alone, and to have contact with the world outside.

💌 Address for letters:
Russia,
620019 Yekaterinburg, ulitsa Malyshev 2b,
IK-2, PFRSI,

Nasryev Roman Raifovich (d.o.b. 1995)
Nuriev Aleksei Talgatovich (d.o.b. 1985)

How to write a letter to a prisoner if you are not in Russia?

Soladarity zone supports Poman Nasryev.

#english

Roman is on the left in the photo.

Black Bridge is a non-commercial secret organization, independent from secret services and governments. At this time, we support revolutionaries across the whole country in their rightful ideas, while continuing to recruit volunteers for out military wing. Our main goal is to ensure safety and support for those Russian citizens, who chose to fight Putin's regime for real, rather than to just talk, to commit partisan warfare actions at the home front, or to fight at the frontier on Ukraine's side.

The so-called "Civilized World" and "outraged Ukrainians" tend to ask us, "Where are your results after one and a half year of war?" Well, here's the answer. Right now, the only thing visible is this: https://t.me/BlackBridgeSupport/446 This is not even a top of the iceberg, it's a snowflake on that top. Almost all the other work remains off-screen. Why is it so?

1. Our goal is to create and develop a revolutionary underground network, not to generate content for entertainment purposes.
2. We have got neither the desire, nor the resources to promote ourselves in the media, while the so-called "good Russians" with a large audience ignore us and refuse to promote our cause even on the paid basis. Therefore, our audience grows "organically", naturally, through "word-of-mouth advertising" and thanks to those who found us on their own.
3. We cannot establish a "revolutionary center" somewhere in the forest and recruit fighters from nearby villages, because we are not in Latin America of the 1950s. These things are obsolete and cannot be applied to our modern reality.
4. No one's got our back. The emigrated "good Russian opposition activists" raise donations to live comfortably out-seas, instead of helping organize a home front base for the Resistance. Moreover, a lot of them were literally grown and fed by Putin's regime, and now they portray themselves as opposition. Some "good Russians" openly condemn violent struggle against Putin's regime, try and dissuade everyone from waging it, and call for doing nothing and waiting. There are also individuals who accuse us of neglecting activists' safety.
5. It is victims who's usually loved more, and those who help the victims. And sometimes those helpers love themselves for helping the victims. Thus, the people who chose not to run away or freeze in awe, but fight, to help not the victims, but fighters, make the aforementioned ladies and gentlemen feel uncomfortable.
6. As a matter of fact, we are forced to wage the war at two fronts at once: we develop violent resistance against Putin's regime, while fending off accusations coming from the "Civilized World" and "outraged Ukrainians", who, for the sake of good impression and out of false patriotism, want to "cancel everything Russian", including us.

In such circumstances the right question does not sound like, "Where are the results?" The right question is, "How do you manage to accomplish anything at all under such conditions?"

The "classic" partisans act as a part of regular armed forces, as raiders operating deep behind the frontier, getting information from the military intelligence, factory-made ammo and explosives. They have got a place where they can return to, take rest and receive some medical assistance. We, on the contrary, are in vacuum. And this is true not only for Black Bridge, but for the Russian Resistance on the whole, as well. That's why every donation and every word expressing gratitude are like a beam of light in the total darkness.

Summary of news concerning the Russian resistance from October 22 to October 29, 2023:

1. In the Vladimir region, resistance members dismantled a surveillance system monitoring railway tracks.
2. In the Moscow region, there was an attempt to instigate an explosion within a military compound; a bag containing flammable liquids and a gas can was discovered near a breach in the fence.
3. Oleg Tsarev, a noted propagandist and war advocate, has been hospitalized in critical condition following an assassination attempt.

Summary of news concerning the Russian resistance from October 29 to November 5, 2023:

1. In a bold strike, rebel forces successfully sabotaged the railway infrastructure, igniting three relay blocks along the critical stretch between Tyumen's twin airports.

2. Suspected homemade bombs were discovered in close proximity to the conscription center in Moscow's Academic district, raising security alarms in the capital.

https://t.me/HeraldOfRebellion/624

Summary of the Latest Developments in Russian Resistance Activities, November 5-12, 2023:

1. In the Tula region, saboteurs set fire to a signal control box on a railway line.
2. Security forces have found an improvised explosive device planted on an oil pipeline in the Leningrad region.
3. The Russian Volunteer Corps launched an incursion into the Bryansk region, where they successfully targeted and destroyed the vehicle of an FSB lieutenant colonel.
4. Partisans in the Ryazan region orchestrated the bombing of a railway track, resulting in the derailment of 19 cargo train cars.
5. A gunpowder factory in the Tambov region suffered a significant fire, reportedly preceded by an explosion, according to local witnesses.

https://t.me/HeraldOfRebellion/629

Summary of the Latest Developments in Russian Resistance Activities, November 12-19, 2023:

1. In a daring act near Yekaterinburg, partisans successfully demolished a key relay box adjacent to a machine-building facility.
2. Close to the same city, rebels set ablaze another communication box near the Kedrovka station.
3. The Nizhny Novgorod region witnessed the destruction of two additional relay boxes
4. A significant incident unfolded in the Volgograd region, where explosions rocked a military unit, triggering a large-scale fire.

https://t.me/HeraldOfRebellion/634

We are launching a fund for the legal defence of Mikhail Balabanov. We need to raise €4600

Twenty-year-old Mikhail Balabanov was detained almost a year ago. The FSB accused him of preparing to firebomb the military recruitment center at Nevinnomyssk. We consider the case against Balabanov to be a provocation by the Russian security services.

The investigating officers claim that Balabanov entered a conspiracy with a representative of Ukrainian intelligence services. And indeed, Mikhail was contacted by someone with the codename “Ben”, claiming to be a GUR [Ukrainian intelligence] operative. Mikhail wanted to avoid being conscripted, and “Ben” promised to arrange this, but in return asked Balabanov to undertake a number of “tasks”. These included making a video recording of conscripts, and of military equipment at the recruitment center’s premises.

When Mikhail arrived at the recruitment center, the security services were waiting there for him. Subsequently, during a search of his home, they “found” a Molotov cocktail. Balabanov has been accused of “preparation of a terrorist act”, and faces the threat of 10 years’ imprisonment.

We believe that it was FSB officers who were corresponding with Mikhail, taking advantage of the fact that he did not want to take part in the attack on Ukraine.

We are starting a fund to pay for Mikhail’s legal representation in court. To continue to defend Mikhail, we need to collect €4600.

✊ We urge you to give Mikhail Balabanov whatever support you can euros, cryptocurrency or a repost!

🪙 PayPal: solidarity_zone@riseup.net (please specify, “for Balabanov”, if possible euros are the preferred currency)

🥷 Cryptocurrencies (please inform us by email to solidarity_zone@riseup.net if you send cryptocurrency to support Mikhail)

Monero: 4B1tm6boA5ST6hLdfnPRG2Np9XMHCTiyhE6QaFo46QXp6tZ7Y6nJjE43xBBTwHM84bWwexR8nS4KH36JHujjc1kC8j2Mx5e

Bitcoin: bc1qn404lrshp3q9gd7852d7w85sa09aq0ch28s3v4

USDT (TRC20):
TRcCUHKSMY7iLJPvbDxLc6ZnvAud72jTgj

#fundraising #english

Summary of the Latest Developments in Russian Resistance Activities, November 19-27, 2023

1. Partisans successfully ignited an electric locomotive in Tyumen.
2. A railway control box, crucial for railway operations, was deliberately set ablaze in the Moscow region.
3. Demonstrating technological prowess, activists from 'Free Bulgaria' launched a kamikaze drone attack on the FSB's (Federal Security Service) territory in Novorossiysk.
4. In a critical blow to the railway network, equipment essential for the functioning of a major marshalling station in Novosibirsk was destroyed.
5. The Russian Volunteer Corps has broken into the global media scene with an exclusive interview in The Guardian, one of Britain's leading newspapers.

https://t.me/HeraldOfRebellion/641

Summary of the latest Russian Resistance Activities, November 27 - December 3, 2023:

Buryatia witnessed one of the war's most significant railway attacks. Partisan forces blasted two freight trains, resulting in the destruction or damage of 24 fuel tanks.

Meanwhile, a major fire engulfed the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, a key facility in the production of engines for Russian tanks. Eyewitnesses in the vicinity reported a loud explosion preceding the blaze.

Adding to the series of sabotage incidents, Dagestan experienced its first railway equipment arson. A relay box at the Buinaksk station was completely destroyed.

https://t.me/HeraldOfRebellion/645