Artem is her only son. Khoroshilov’s father died of cancer in 2007, when the boy was 16. “It wasn’t me who had to take care of my son alone after my husband’s death — it was my son who took full responsibility for me,” says Tamara Ivanovna. “He grew up early. Even now, behind bars, he still takes care of me. In every letter and whenever he gets the chance: ‘Mommy, how are you feeling? How are you?’ So as not to upset me further, he only writes about himself that everything is fine there. Once I couldn’t hold back and wrote back: ‘Son, don’t overdo it — prison isn’t a resort!’ And the way he describes it, it’s as if he’s living in resort-like conditions. But I have nothing good to tell him about myself. The prosecution of my son has severely affected my health. All my existing serious chronic illnesses have only worsened. New ones have appeared particularly serious neurological conditions. Doctors are warning that surgery may be necessary and warning that if things continue this way, I’ll soon be unable to walk at all…”
Previously on T-invariant
But Tamara Khoroshilova feels far greater concern for her son than for herself. Artem had normal life plans: to start a family, have children, and succeed in science. “As his academic advisor testified in court, Artem really could have achieved a lot as a physicist,” Tamara Ivanovna believes. “He was constantly engaged in scientific work: calculations, experiments… He spent days and nights in the laboratory.”
As for the charges against her son, Tamara Khoroshilova says that even on the counts where he fully admitted (“high treason” for donating to the Ukrainian charity Come Back Alive), one of the largest funds helping Ukrainian military personnel) or partially (DDoS-attack on infrastructure) admitted guilt, she does not consider him guilty.
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“How could he not help when we are Ukrainians? We have always had relatives in Ukraine, and since February 2022 they still live there, in the Kyiv region,” she explains. “My maiden name is Ukrainian. And his father was Ukrainian. To be honest, I never wondered whether the surname Khoroshilov is Russian, Ukrainian, or something else by origin. Four years ago, it was completely irrelevant — what difference does it make, as long as the person is decent. But now you can’t even talk about [Ukrainian roots]. I lived half my life in Ukraine, while Artem was born and raised in Noginsk near Moscow. Before all these events, he often visited Ukraine to see both grandmothers and other relatives…”
The 700,000 rubles (approximately $7,500) that Artem transferred to the Come Back Alive fund were all his savings. “He had been saving them for many years,” notes Tamara Khoroshilova. “And he sent everything he had earned in his life, everything he had. Why? To support his relatives. He couldn’t transfer money directly to them because financial transfers between Russia and Ukraine were almost immediately cut off after the start of the ‘special military operation.’ He didn’t consult me — he just sent it.”
Tamara Ivanovna does not believe her son was capable of committing sabotage, for which he was also accused of plotting. “A person who donated money to refugees and cared for stray cats and dogs is incapable of such a thing,” she is convinced. “The three types of nitrate fertilizer found in his apartment were for fertilizer. One of them is suitable only for that purpose. Artem has always grown some plants. If I just mentioned it, he would run out and buy it. That’s how, from childhood, he started growing things especially for me: flowers, cucumbers, tomatoes, lemons… Then seedlings. That was for his father — for his father’s grave. He saw that things weren’t growing well there and bought the nitrate… He didn’t know exactly which type was needed, so he bought three types. One of them, as the expert concluded, is not suitable for sabotage. But neither the investigation, the prosecution, nor the court took that into account… And for almost a whole year after the search, when they found the nitrate, he lived and worked as usual. He didn’t think about fleeing anywhere; he didn’t think he was doing anything illegal.”
Chronicles of persecution
Khoroshilov’s sentence is unprecedented. According to our database, 34 scientists, academics, and research engineers are currently detained. T-invariant has released the 27-th issue of the Chronicles of the Persecution of Scientists project, listing the ten longest prison terms handed down by courts.
Artem Khoroshilov — 21 years (treason)
Alexey Vorobyov — 20 years (treason)
Ruslan Shadiyev — 18 years (treason)
Alexander Shiplyuk — 15 years (treason)
Anatoly Maslov — 14 years (treason)
Dmitry Kizhmenev — 13 years (treason)
Valery Golubkin — 12 years (treason)
Anatoly Gubanov — 12 years (treason)
Alexander Lukanin — 7.5 years (treason)
Alexander Kuranov — 7 years (treason)
In Khoroshilov’s criminal case, the nitrate became evidence in the charge of preparation for the “illegal manufacture of explosives and explosive devices,” while a photograph he took during a walk near his home in Noginsk was interpreted as plotting sabotage. In the photo, the security services saw not only the main subject — the forest — but also railway tracks that allegedly lead toward a local military unit.
“Those tracks have long been overgrown with grass; maybe they are occasionally used to transport gravel,” sighs Tamara Khoroshilova. “What military unit? What cargo? The photograph — it’s just beautiful there! It’s a forest, near the house, we walk there. I even have a photo in my home archive from 20 years ago where I’m standing in exactly the same spot, on that disused railway spur. With flowers.”
As for the testimony concerning the charge of attacking the servers of Russian Post, Tamara Ivanovna suspects that Artem may have given it under extreme pressure. She outlined the nature of that pressure off the record — “so as not to harm my son even more.”
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She cried throughout the reading of the verdict. “No, no — you haven’t yet seen what I’ve learned over these two years without my son: how to cry. Back then, I wasn’t even crying. On the contrary, I was holding myself back so as not to upset him further, so that he would keep going too,” Artem’s mother explained in a voice hoarse from tears as she left the courthouse.
Artem Khoroshilov entered the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 2008 and graduated with honors from the Faculty of Problems of Physics and Energy in 2014. After MIPT, he began working at the Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GPI RAS) in the Department of Low Temperatures and Cryogenic Technology and also worked as a tutor in physics and mathematics. He is the author and co-author of several dozen publications in the most prestigious Russian and international scientific journals. He is Candidate of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics (PhD equivalent). T-invariant has covered in detail the chronology of his persecution and court hearings. On November 25, 2025, Artem Khoroshilov delivered his final statement, explaining his motives as follows: “Personally, I decided that I could not stand aside and simply live as before. The goal of all my actions was to help save at least one life in this war, no matter the cost to me.” His final statement can be read here.
On December 4, Khoroshilov stoically listened to the verdict and raised three fingers to the cameras — a gesture commonly used in courtrooms that symbolizes the Tryzub (Ukrainian trident).