The fourth case of a Crimean blacksmith. Oleh Prykhodko, who has opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea for years, will be tried for “treason”

Crimean activist and Maidan participant Oleh Prykhodko, convicted three times by Russian courts, has become the subject of a new criminal case. It was filed with the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don in mid-April, Mediazona discovered.

This time, the Crimean is accused of aiding terrorism and inciting treason—charges under which Prykhodko faces a life sentence. According to the FSB, while serving his sentence in a Krasnodar penal colony, Prykhodko persuaded other prisoners to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defence, go to the front, and then surrender to the Ukrainian side.

Who is Oleh Prykhodko

A blacksmith from the city of Saki in Crimea, Prykhodko has opposed the annexation of the peninsula by Russia since 2014. For years, the Crimean man clashed with police over Ukrainian license plates on his car and a Ukrainian flag on his house.

In 2019, Prykhodko was detained on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack. A TNT block was found during a search of his home, but he insisted it was planted. He received a five-year prison sentence. During one of the hearings, he cursed an FSB investigator, earning him another conviction.

Prykhodko’s daughter reported that during the investigation and imprisonment, her father was repeatedly tortured with electric shocks, denied medical care, and often sent to solitary confinement.

Cases based on denunciations

The Crimean man was supposed to be released in 2024, but he was given a new sentence: 4.5 years in prison for “rehabilitation of Nazism” and “calls for terrorism.” The charges were based on denunciations from other prisoners with whom the Crimean man interacted in the penal colony.

The implacable opponent of the annexation of Crimea was recently imprisoned in Correctional Colony No. 2 in the Krasnodar krai. The “treason” case, like the previous one, arose after denunciations from other prisoners.

Through state news agencies, the security service distributed a video recording in which an anonymous convict describes a conversation with Oleh Prikhodko about politics and the Maidan. “Then he learned I was going to the SMO to atone for my guilt before my homeland. He told me it wasn’t worth it and that even if you go there... if you shoot one of the commanders-in-chief, surrender, and say ‘Glory to Ukraine!’, then everything will be fine, everything will be wonderful,” the man in the recording claims.

In March 2026, Prykhodko was transferred to Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Krasnodar. His lawyer, Yevgeny Bazylev, declined to comment on the case.