The Pushkinsky District Court of St. Petersburg has taken into custody Yevgeny Sitnikov, who is accused of arms trafficking. A day earlier, the security forces came with searches to the office of the Association of Carriers of Russia (OPR), as well as to the place of residence of the activists – the head of the ORP, Sergei Vladimirov, and the head of the St. Petersburg branch, Sergei Ponezha. After interrogations in the FSB department, only Mr. Sitnikov, who is not a member of the association, remained in the status of a suspect. Last week, special services carried out raids in more than 40 regions of the country, including St. Petersburg, where they were looking for underground workshops for the restoration of demilitarized weapons.
At the request of the investigator, the court sent Yevgeny Sitnikov to a pre-trial detention center on charges of illegal arms trafficking. In total, he is charged with six episodes: three for the purchase and the same for the sale of firearms (parts 3 and 5 of article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to Russian law, these illegal actions are punishable by imprisonment from 5 to 12 years, depending on the severity of the crime. Earlier, the media reported that the searches at the office of the Association of Russian Carriers on Dekabristov Street and at the addresses of the defendants were carried out as part of the case of preparing for a terrorist attack (Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with the application of Article 30 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – preparation and attempted crime), however later it turned out that the security forces were not interested in the work of social activists. Their visit is connected with the activities of gunsmiths – people who remake the blanked weapons into combat ones.
Two other OPR leaders detained that day, Sergei Ponezha and Sergei Vladimirov, were allowed to go home after interrogations were completed at the FSB headquarters on Liteiny Prospekt. They are on trial as witnesses. It is noteworthy that Mr. Sitnikov himself is not a member of this association, but he shares their views and is familiar with the participants of the organization, which arose in the wake of protests against the system of fees from heavy trucks “Platon”.
As it became known to Kommersant-SPb, during a search, Yevgeny Sitnikov could have found two units turned into military weapons, as well as ammunition for it and tools for reworking demilitarized barrels. The trial of Mr. Sitnikov took place behind closed doors. Despite the fact that the man is married and has a child with a disability, he was taken into custody until July 15.
On May 17, the Center for Public Relations (CSP) of the FSB announced that the activities of 40 underground workshops had been terminated. Across the country, 165 illegal gunsmiths were detained. Operational activities were held in 44 regions of the country. In particular, investigative actions were carried out in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Sevastopol, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Mordovia, North Ossetia, Yakutia, the Donetsk and Kabardino-Balkarian Republics, Altai, Trans-Baikal, Krasnoyarsk, Primorsky, Stavropol and Khabarovsk Territories.
According to the intelligence service, the suspects were engaged in “restoring the combat properties of civilian weapons in clandestine workshops” and selling them. About 400 weapons were seized from the “black” repairmen: pistols, machine guns, rifles, carbines, grenade launchers, flamethrowers, hand grenades, anti-personnel mines, as well as anti-tank guided missiles and man-portable air defense systems.
Such workshops do not have any negative impact on the legal arms business, Nikolai Kaplin, director of the St. Petersburg company OOO Bars, which includes several arms stores, explained to Kommersant-SPB. “You can’t talk about any kind of competition here at all, all these underground workers live in a reality that is parallel to us,” he said. However, according to Mr. Kaplin, the problem today is that many types of weapons from the NVO zone are on the black market. “Everything is being dragged along — this is what worries the FSB and the rest of the security forces,” the expert concluded. “As a rule, “black” repairmen restore not civilian samples, but old weapons dug up somewhere or brought from hot spots,” emphasized Vyacheslav Vaneev, chairman of the Right to Arms movement. In his opinion, this harms law-abiding citizens, and also becomes the basis for speculation by individual politicians who come out with tougher measures for the circulation of legal weapons.