Sergei Korkhov

A resident of the Moscow region. Those close to him claim that in 2021, a man who identified himself as a special forces veteran came into his confidence and insistently asked to be introduced to Korhov's friends. Later it became known that this man, who acted under the pseudonym Alexander Nemchikov, was an FSB informant. After the beginning of the war, he began to systematically provoke Korhov and his friends to discuss dangerous topics: he offered to look for sponsors in Ukraine, to discuss possible terrorist attacks, to criticise the authorities. Nemchikov recorded all the conversations. Korhov and his friends often disagreed with him, but they did not dare to object openly, respecting him as a "veteran".

The support group of Korhov and other persecuted persons claims 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.

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".

While Korhov was serving in the army, between July 2022 and 8 May 2023, when he was detained, fellow soldiers, whom the support group claims were sent by FSB officers, offered him to read extremist literature. In court interrogations, they said that FSB officers gave instructions on what topics to initiate in conversation and that one of them was given extremist literature to give to Korhov.

On 8 May 2023, while he was lying in a military hospital where he had just been treated for pneumonia, he was detained on suspicion of involvement in preparations to bomb a military unit in Balashikha and taken into custody. Korkhov 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 the others prosecuted in the case for about six months.

The support group reports that he was kicked while being escorted, demanding that he confess to the offences. His mother was repeatedly summoned to the FSB department, where officers threatened to create unbearable conditions in the pre-trial detention centre for her son if he did not stop writing complaints against the investigator and start confessing guilt. She was followed for months by the same cars, apparently under surveillance, the support group claims. Nemchikov, appearing in court, presented a forged passport. When the defence lawyers discovered this and passed the relevant certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the judge, the judge again summoned Nemchikov, who this time brought a real passport, but the judge classified its data.

On 29 July 2025, Korhov was sentenced to 16 years in a strict regime colony.