Ivan Silin

A resident of the Moscow region. His family claims that in 2021 he and his friends met a man calling himself a special forces veteran. Later, it came to light that he was an FSB informant. After the initial encounter, he began to systematically provoke discussion of dangerous topics: he suggested looking for sponsors in Ukraine, discussing possible terrorist attacks, criticising the authorities. He recorded all the conversations. Silin and his friends often disagreed with him, but they did not dare to object openly, respecting him as a "veteran".

The support group of Silin and other persecuted persons claim that their interlocutor offered them to learn how to throw Molotov cocktails in an abandoned detached building. He also recorded these actions on devices issued to him by the FSB.

In addition, on several occasions he showed Silin and the other two pursued men a handgun, which he said he had brought back from Ukraine as a trophy, explicitly saying that he could teach them how to use the handgun because he was a veteran of combat operations and had served in the 604 TsSN (Special Purpose Unit) "Vityaz" in the past. They repeated the gun handling techniques after him, using air pistols.

Participation in these meetings was later qualified as training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities.

The support group claims that by December 2022, most of those prosecuted in the case had already stopped communicating with the "veteran".

In May 2023, Silin was detained on suspicion of preparing to bomb a military unit in Balashikha outside Moscow and taken into custody. He was accused of participating in the activities of a terrorist community and receiving training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities. At the same time, he was not present on the territory of the military unit, and he had not communicated with others prosecuted in the case for about six months. The support group claims that the same cars, apparently under field surveillance, had been following Silin's mother for several months.

In addition, a case of complicity in the commission of sabotage was opened against Silin: according to the investigation, he discussed with Anton Khripko, whom the investigation considers to be a head of the terrorist community, how to set fire to an integrated transformer substation on the railway in Balashikha. This case was filed separately.

On 29 July 2025, Silin was sentenced to 16 years in a strict regime colony in the first case.