{"id":529390,"date":"2026-03-29T13:30:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T10:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=529390"},"modified":"2026-03-29T14:00:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:00:43","slug":"20-year-old-belarusian-sentenced-to-16-years-in-moscow-for-arson-of-railway-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/20-year-old-belarusian-sentenced-to-16-years-in-moscow-for-arson-of-railway-car","title":{"rendered":"20-Year-Old Belarusian Sentenced to 16 Years in Moscow for Arson of Railway Car"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Second Western District Military Court in Moscow has sentenced 20-year-old Belarusian citizen Illia Aliashkevich<\/b> to 16 years in a penal colony for setting fire to the cab of a maintenance railcar at the Bykovo station in the Moscow region. A resident of the Vladimir region, Anton Baklanov<\/b>, named as an accomplice, received 15 years, writes<\/a> Kommersant.<\/p>\n

The actions of the convicted men were classified as a terrorist act carried out in the interests of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

According to the case materials, the young men were looking for work and, via Telegram, came into contact with an unidentified person who offered them 120,000 rubles to set fire to the railcar. Aliashkevich climbed onto the rail vehicle, broke a window, poured gasoline into the cab, and set it on fire. Baklanov filmed the incident and sent the video to a handler as proof of completing the task. In the end, Aliashkevich received only $26. The damage to property belonging to RZhDStroy was estimated at 5.8 million rubles.<\/p>\n

The FSB, which conducted expert examinations in the case, found no terrorist motives and recommended reclassifying the charges to damage to transport infrastructure, which carries a maximum sentence of up to one year. However, the case was returned to the Interior Ministry, where it continued to be investigated under terrorism charges.<\/p>\n

Defense lawyers insisted that their clients had no intent to destabilize the authorities or intimidate the population. The arson took place at night away from people, the fire was extinguished within eight minutes, and no one was injured. According to the defense, the word \u201cUkraine\u201d appears only in the investigator\u2019s procedural documents and is absent from testimonies, correspondence, and the FSB\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo young men born in 2005 and 2006\u2014one from an orphanage who lived on the street, the other left home at 17 and was not cared for by his parents. They decided to earn money quickly to pay for housing. One of them searched online for work, typed \u2018job as a runner,\u2019 found a Telegram link, and contacted it (incidentally, the account is still active). He was offered to set fire to a maintenance railcar cab, with the organizers presenting themselves as a repair company that would benefit from it. But the investigation and the court did not examine this version,\u201d<\/i> said defense lawyer Alena Savelieva<\/b>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court issued a verdict based on the fantasies of investigators from the Interior Ministry\u2019s transport police unit at the Moscow-Ryazanskaya station about some alleged Ukrainian trace, motives, and goals of my client. A homeless young man from an orphanage who simply wanted to earn a living\u2014albeit by clearly wrongful means\u2014was turned into a terrorist who, by setting fire to a driver\u2019s cab at night, supposedly sought to undermine the entire state system of Russia. This verdict will remain on their conscience,\u201d<\/i> said defense lawyer Gevorg Aleksanyan<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Second Western District Military Court in Moscow has sentenced 20-year-old Belarusian citizen Illia Aliashkevich to 16 years in a penal colony for setting fire to the cab of a maintenance railcar at the Bykovo station in the Moscow region. A resident of the Vladimir region, Anton Baklanov, named as an accomplice, received 15 years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":526001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69c9065ee38f8.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"20-Year-Old Belarusian Sentenced to 16 Years in Moscow for Arson of Railway Car"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143094],"tags":[143118,143122,143123],"class_list":["post-529390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-incident","tag-belarus","tag-rossija","tag-ukraina"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}