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Double sentence for Alexandre Smirnov and Igor Danilov
In January 2002, while mass people’s demonstrations against the government were converting in clashes with the security forces, in Odessa, the police arrested, 12 members of the Leninist Communist Youth Union including 4 Russians, seven Ukranians and 1 Moldavian.
They were accused of having ‘set up an underground terrorist group with the aim of overthrowing by means of violence the constitutionnal order of Ukraine and the seizure of its state power’. Their project was to develop a revolutionary movement in the areas having massive multinationals workers concurbations, with the aim of founding a soviet socialist republic of the Black Sea, the first step towards the rebuilding of the USSR.
Expropriations have been carried out to buy weapons, to finance the underground press, to help the workers on strike and the revolutionary prisonners (as also those from the NRA). An attack with explosives against the headquarters of the security forces has been carried out and a policeman was wounded in the shooting between the police and members of the group who could manage to escape afterwards. The police operation in January 2002 did not happen without difficulties: the members of the organisation resisted the special forces.
Trials followed, as well as sentences and long years of detention in tough conditions. But the sentence adds further the sentence, because the Russian accused are being extradited to Russia after having served their penalty in Ukraine and have to server another sentence in Russia (an expropriation of a jewellery store had occured in Moscow). Igor Danilov had served 14 years in Ukraine (and contracted the tuberculosis while in jail) and today, he has to serve another 13 years in Russia. Alexandre Smirnov had served 8 years in Ukraine and has to serve another 9 years in Russia.