The panel of judges of Russia's 2nd Military District Court sentenced Ahmad Kurbonov, accused of committing the terrorist act that killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, to life imprisonment. He was also fined 1 million rubles. RBC reported on this.
According to the publication, Azerbaijani citizen Robert Safaryan, who delivered the explosive substance, was sentenced to 25 years in a strict-regime penal colony, the first 9 years of which he will serve in prison. Ingushetian citizens Batukhan Tochiev and Ramazan Padiev, who rented an apartment to Kurbonov, were sentenced to 22 years (first 8 years in prison) and 18 years (first 6 years in prison) of deprivation of liberty, respectively, and also fined 200 thousand rubles each.
The accused were charged, depending on their roles in the case, with organizing and participating in a terrorist community, preparing a terrorist act, as well as illegal trafficking of explosives and manufacturing an explosive device. During the court debates, prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova requested a life sentence for Kurbonov, 28 years for Safaryan, 26 years for Tochiev, and 24 years for Padiev in a strict-regime penal colony.
According to the publication, Kurbonov pleaded guilty and actively cooperated with the investigation. The other accused stated that they were unaware of Kurbonov's involvement in terrorist activities. Tochiev and Padiev said in court that they were only involved in renting out the apartment, and Safaryan indicated that he was unaware of what was in the parcel he delivered.
According to the investigation's version, on December 17, 2024, Uzbek citizen Kurbonov, on the instructions of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), left an electric scooter with a remotely controlled bomb installed in the entrance of the building where General Kirillov lived. After that, the perpetrator of the terrorist act got into a rented car and broadcast the ongoing events live to Ukraine. The explosion occurred when General Igor Kirillov and his aide, Major Ilya Polykarpov, were leaving the house, and both officers were killed.
According to information from the Russian Investigative Committee, Kurbonov was promised $100,000, new documents, and a permit to live in one of the European Union countries for killing the servicemen by explosion. However, he did not receive this reward because he was arrested a few hours after the explosion. After that, Safaryan was also arrested in the city of Vladimir. According to the investigation, he delivered the bomb, which had been brought from Poland, to Kurbonov. Initially, he was only charged with illegal trafficking of explosives, but after being brought to Moscow, he was also charged with involvement in the terrorist act. Later, in January 2025, Batukhan Tochiev and Ramazan Padiev were also arrested. According to the case materials, they provided Kurbonov with the apartment in which he tried to hide after the explosion.
According to Russian investigation data, the SBU financed the preparation of the terrorist act using USDT stablecoins (cryptoassets pegged to a specific exchange rate). At the initial stage, Kurbonov received 5,000 USDT. In 2024, this was equivalent to 404.8 thousand rubles.
