Benashvili Levan Davidovich

The Crimean Bridge was blown up on October 8, 2022, using a truck loaded with explosives. The explosion destroyed about 250 meters of the highway, and seven tank cars of a freight train burned down. 5 people died. The Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case on the fact of the bridge explosion for committing a terrorist act as part of a group of persons by prior conspiracy, resulting in significant property damage or other grave consequences." On October 10, the criminal case was accepted for production by investigator for especially important cases of the first investigation department of the Investigation Department for Crimes against the Person and Public Safety of the Investigative Committee of Russia Kunitsyna M.A. According to the FSB and investigators, the mastermind behind the terrorist attack was the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov. General Budanov allegedly acted not directly, but through his subordinate, who was called Ivan Ivanovich and gave instructions to the other members of the group by phone. Moreover, the SIM card was registered to a resident of the Ukrainian city of Kremenchug, Sergey Andreychenko. The FSB and the Investigative Committee reported that 12 people were members of the terrorist group, eight of whom were detained. The FSB statement states that in organizing the route of the truck with explosives, both Ukrainian citizens Mikhail Tsyurkalo, Denis Kovach, and Roman Solomko, as well as Georgian citizens: Sandro Inasaridze and a broker known to the special services only by the name Levan, were involved. They were helped by Armenian citizen Arthur Terchanyan. Five Russians are also involved in the investigation. On October 12, 2022, Vladimir Zloba, a native of the Kherson region, Armenian citizen Arthur Terchanyan, Kherson native Roman Solomko, and two brothers from Makeevka in the Donetsk region, Artyom and Georgy Azatyan, were detained on charges of involvement in the bridge explosion. On October 13, the Kievsky District Court of the Republic of Crimea chose a measure of restraint for them in the form of detention. Later, the defendants were transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Moscow. On October 14, entrepreneur Oleg Antipov, Alexander Bylin, and Dmitry Tyazhelykh were detained in Moscow. The next day, the Basmanny Court of Moscow placed them in custody. In October 2022, Oleg Antipov accepted an order for the delivery of construction film from Armavir to Simferopol. On October 8, after learning about the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, Antipov thought that his car might have been the one that exploded, and called the FSB to help with the investigation. On October 14, operatives came to his house and said that he had to go to Moscow to give testimony. The next day he was arrested on charges of terrorism. Lawyers and relatives of the arrested insist that the people themselves came to the interrogations, including in their own cars, lived in a hotel at their own expense at the request of the special services, and in general tried to help the investigation as much as possible, insisting on their innocence. 25 November 2025, the Southern District Military Court found the defendants guilty and sentenced all of them to life imprisonment with part of the sentence to be served in prison.