For the first time in Russian history, a court is about to issue a sentence typically given to real terrorists and serial killers, solely for allegedly intending to commit a crime. State prosecutor Madina Dolgieva has requested 34-year-old physicist Artem Khoroshilov be sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of treason, DDoS attack, and preparation of sabotage. To date, this is the record term requested for a member of the scientific community. Previously, the harshest punishment for treason was 15 years (the prosecutor requested 20) —which is what the Director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Alexander Shiplyuk received in September 2024. “The system is turning feral — especially in cases related to the ‘SVO’. And the claim that the defendant’s high intellect is an aggravating circumstance has left us all reeling,” say scientists interviewed by T-invariant. (‘SVO’ is the official euphemism for the invasion of Ukraine. — T-invariant)
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The first victim of this newly imposed harsh punishment is 34-year-old physicist from Noginsk Artem Khoroshilov, a research fellow at the Prokhorov General Physics Institute (GPI) of the RAS. The prosecutor requested 25 years for him (including 20 years in a strict-regime penal colony). The young scientist admitted only to having transferred money and cryptocurrency to Ukrainian humanitarian organizations. Khoroshilov explained this by saying that in the winter and spring of 2022, he was in a state of shock because his relatives (including his aunt) live in the Kyiv region. The scientist noted that he donated only for humanitarian purposes.
The other charges — DDoS attack and preparation of sabotage — fall apart under scrutiny (T-invariant has covered this in detail here, here, and here). Around the same time, another court in the Moscow region sentenced a bank analyst Yevgeny Serebryakov to 25 years in a penal colony for actually detonating an explosive under a military intelligence officer’s car (as a result of the terrorist attack, the colonel lost both feet, and his wife was injured). There was no victims in Khoroshilov’s case, and the Russian national postal service, Russian Post, whose critical infrastructure was allegedly attacked, did not even file any claims for damages. T-invariant investigated why the young physicist is about to be sentenced to a “Stalin-era” prison term for intentions and a thought crimes, even though previously 25 years were given only to real terrorists and serial killers.
The sentence handed down on November 20, 2025, to Yevgeny Serebryakov reads as if it had been copied from Khoroshilov’s indictment, which was announced on November 19: the same 25 years in jail, the same 1 million rubles fine, the same confiscation of everything that could be found from the defendant. Meanwhile, Serebryakov admitted all the charges: trips to Turkey for meetings with a contact and training in explosives, video calls with a handler to make an explosive device, receiving cash as payment, changing targets for the terrorist attack, actually mining a high-ranking intelligence officer’s car. In his case real people were harmed.
In the Khoroshilov’s case, the “evidence” consisted nothing more than some aluminum foil, three kinds of saltpeter, and fireplace starter fluid found in his mother’s apartment. These items were classified as evidence of sabotage. State prosecutor Madina Dolgieva cited as an aggravating circumstance the fact that Khoroshilov did not report to the special services that he was allegedly preparing such an explosion. She also stated that the mentioned explosion did not occur because it was prevented by investigators, who seized the saltpeter during the first search at the defendant’s mother’s place on January 25, 2023. Meanwhile, neither an explosive device was created, nor even all the necessary elements for making a bomb were found. The probability of its creation by Khoroshilov was assessed at the FSB’s request by a radiochemist from the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the RAS, whose specialty — ultra-rare earth elements — is unrelated to explosives (T-invariant described this episode with the expert opinion in detail).
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The second part of the indictment is devoted to the DDoS attack on Russian Post servers in early August 2022, which was allegedly organized from Khoroshilov’s home computer. There are at least two aspects of the attack that raise serious questions. First, the attack was allegedly carried out using 500 computers, but only one of them — Khoroshilov’s — was checked. Second, the representative of the Russian Post monitoring center, Stanislav Ilyichev admitted in court that the attack did not affect the state-owned company’s operations in any way, the service downtime did not exceed 15 minutes. Ilyichev described the damage from the attack as purely reputational. According to the prosecutor, Khoroshilov allegedly joined the IT Army of Ukraine Telegram channel where he received the necessary instructions, and a DDoS attack program with the company’s server addresses was found on his computer. Khoroshilov himself admitted to downloading and running the DDoS attack program, but claimed he had only been checking whether it worked. He denies communicating with the admins of IT Army of Ukraine. The physicist insists that on the dates specified by the prosecution (August 3–4, 2022), he did not run it, and the prosecution has presented no evidence to the contrary.
T-INVARIANT REFERENCE
High-profile cases of recent years and their sentences
- Darya Trepova, found guilty of terrorist activity, was sentenced to 27 years in a penal colony, as well as a fine of 600 thousand rubles. In addition, Trepova must pay compensation to the victims totaling 16.5 million rubles (about 200,000 dollars).
- Yevgeny Serebryakov, who blew up a Ministry of Defense officer’s car in 2024, was sentenced to 25 years.
- On June 28, 2022, the 2nd Western Military District Court sentenced Dmitry Mikhalchenko, former CEO of the Forum Holding to 20 years in a strict penal colony and a fine of 1 million rubles in the case of embezzling 1.2 billion rubles during the construction of a reception house near the president’s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo.
- The Moscow City Court sentenced journalist and advisor on information policy to the head of Roscosmos Ivan Safronov to 22 years. He was found guilty of treason. Details of Safronov’s case were not disclosed; the hearings were held in closed session.
- Artem Yena, Vasily Churilov, Alexander Timoshenko, who participated in the attempt on the life of the first head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and the murder of commander Arsen Pavlov with the call sign “Motorola” (charges included terrorism, attempted terrorism, attempt on the life of a state figure, participation in a terrorist community, espionage, and other crimes), were sentenced to imprisonment for 17, 13, and 12 years respectively.
- In 2024, the Primorye Regional Court sentenced Igor Kovalchuk, whom the Investigative Committee considers a hitman for the “Trifonovskie” organized crime group, to 14 years in a strict regime colony. The defendant has seven murders to his name.
The interrogations of Khoroshilov’s mother, and of the physicist himself (see the transcript), where they discussed why he needed the “Young Chemist” and “Young Physicist” kits (some kits were stored in his mother’s apartment since the his school days), are telling. Prosecution claims that the “Arduino platform for studying programming in microcontrollers,” found at Khoroshilov’s, and costing from 200 to 2,000 rubles (2,5-25 USD) is the missing element for detonating an explosive under the railroad. The testimonies of Khoroshilov and his mother that the young scientist’s hobbies included amateur radio, did not convince either the prosecution or the court. However, the prosecution argues that Khoroshilov’s guilt is aggravated not only by his childhood interests but also by his honors diplomas from MIPT, his dissertation, testimonies from colleagues and from his scientific supervisor at the GPI RAS that he was the first author of publications in prestigious international journals (see also excerpts from the transcript). The prosecutor Madina Dolgieva concluded her long accusatory speech with a passage about how the defendant’s high intelligence constitutes an aggravating circumstance.
“The defendant Khoroshilov has a higher education, an academic degree, positive references [from MIPT and GPI RAS]. However, it is precisely these circumstances that aggravate his guilt. He, possessing high intellectual potential, consciously and purposefully directed his knowledge and skills toward selling out the security of his own country, acting not out of ignorance, but based on deep and persistent anti-state convictions,” declared the state prosecutor.
“The argument that the defendant’s high intelligence is an aggravating circumstance has really stunned us all,” one prominent member of the RAS told T-invariant on condition of anonymity. — The logic seems to be: if an intelligent person does not support the SVO, it could influence the majority’s attitude toward it. Particular cruelty toward the smart is logical for Putin’s system. If you don’t pit the ignorant against the intelligent, then the intelligent will become role models, or at least their example will get people thinking. I immediately recalled a quote from the Strugatsky brothers’ Lame Fate/Ugly Swans: ‘…in our time <…> whites are set against blacks, and yellows against whites, and the stupid against the smart… What, exactly, surprises you?’”.
In the opinion of T-invariant’s interlocutor, this case differs significantly from other political cases (donations to Anti-Corruption Foundation, for example), ostensibly espionage ones (scientists working in hypersonic technologies), and economic ones (like Oleg Kabov’s story): “The difference between Khoroshilov’s sentence and, say, the cases of hypersonic scientists is simple. It is directly linked to the SVO, hence such an extremely harsh sentence. The system is turning feral. A 15-year sentence for hypersonics researchers is a completely different matter. Now everything related to the ‘SVO’ is punished with particular savagery. They punish not only those who oppose, publicly or covertly, but also those who condemn it, as in Khoroshilov’s case, or even those who simply do not express approval. The tightening of repression will be uniform in all directions”.
“The sentence the prosecution is requesting is monstrous. It is the nightmarish NKVD-style story (NKVD — the Soviet commissariat that implemented Stalin’s Great Terror. — T-invariant) and looks as if it had been copied from their verdicts.” And yet no violent actions are attributed to him. Obviously, this is an attempt to intimidate the wider public. As if they were afraid of something — or someone. However, maybe they’re just earning their next stars,” says biophysicist Andrey Tsaturyan.
“What is strange about the case of Artem Khoroshilov is that, despite the extremely serious charges and the unprecedented penalty requested for persecuted scientists, we see no attempt to turn the case into a show trial,” notes physicist Alexander Kostinsky, who began his scientific career, like Khoroshilov, at the GPI RAS. — Artem is accused of intending to commit a whole series of sabotages. It would seem that the special services are heroes who prevented a serious crime. They should showcase their success, scare the public, talk about this case on TV with a message to all sympathizers: ‘Don’t be like Artem, or we’ll catch you anywhere!’ However, even based on the limited information we have on this trial, the serious inconsistencies and flaws in the evidence are already apparent. This suggests that even at the interdepartmental level, the specific investigative team is not ready to attract attention to this case to boast about it to colleagues. Moreover, it is not ready to publicly present this case as a professional success. The prosecutor Madina Dolgieva understands this too, using Artem’s high intelligence as an argument. Had she had a stronger and more convincing argument, she would have used it. But apparently, she doesn’t have one. Thus, the case will be concluded quietly, becoming just another line in the statistics on “prevented serious crimes.” Hence, I assume, a term disproportionate to the proven actions — to emphasize the significance of what was prevented”.
The human-rights project First Department has not yet commented on a term proposed by Prosecutor Dolgieva, suggesting to wait for the verdict. “For most other accused scientists, there is usually only one criminal charge, whereas Artem Khoroshilov has several, the sentences are cumulative, hence the impressive — and severe — sentence,” says the project’s founder Ivan Pavlov.
Excerpts from the transcript of Artem Khoroshilov’s speech at the court session on November 19, 2025
“All the main factual circumstances relate to the winter, spring, and summer of 2022. My relatives live in the Kyiv region, and starting in February, I began worrying intensely about their lives and well-being. This stemmed from the barrage of news reports about civilian casualties in Ukraine from missile strikes — and especially from reports about the front line advancing deeper into the Kyiv region. That posed a direct threat to my relatives’ lives. Therefore, being in a state of strong shock due to emotional experiences, I decided to provide immediate help to my relatives and other civilians in the situation. I decided to transfer money to Ukrainian funds that provide various forms of humanitarian aid to civilians. Due to my distressed emotional state, I could not find funds that dealt exclusively with helping civilians, I sent money to the Come Back Alive fund and some others. They support efforts such as purchasing medications, demining, evacuating civilians. This is confirmed by the case materials. Also, most of the cryptocurrency I transferred to funds that provided humanitarian aid, restored civilian infrastructure, helped refugees, evacuated civilians from the combat zone. Separately, I transferred money to a fund that helped homeless pets abandoned by their owners. Already in pretrial detention, I asked my mother to transfer funds from the few remaining savings to funds helping orphans in Luhansk, as well as residents of the Kursk region affected by hostilities. In total, since December 2024, 33,000 rubles have been transferred. More is not possible, my mother needs to buy a lot of expensive medication now. I fully plead guilty under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It should be noted that I provided investigators with the passwords needed to access the cryptocurrency transaction hashes. I voluntarily disclosed all the cryptocurrency transfers and voluntarily provided passwords to my phone and laptop.
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“The distance from my house in the town of Noginsk to the section of the railroad track I am accused of plotting to sabotage, is roughly 130 meters. It is surrounded by a forest. Due to the extremely low traffic on this stretch of railroad, locals often use it for walks. During a walk on May 1, 2022, I photographed an unfamiliar device located near this stretch of railroad to later find out its purpose online. I did not look at these photos again, simply forgot about them and did not delete them, as they were buried in the sheer volume of data on my computer. I had no idea that this section of the railroad is sometimes used by a military unit located 20 kilometers from my house. Contrary to the prosecution’s claims, up until my arrest, I took absolutely no action regarding this stretch of railroad. I neither attempted nor prepared to disrupt its operation in any way.”