They seized the “Melitopol Chereshnya” and exported the harvest to the Russian Federation: the court sentenced the occupiers
Фото: САП
The Kommunarsky District Court of Zaporizhzhia found two Russian citizens guilty in absentia of a war crime — the illegal seizure of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. Each of them received 12 years in prison.
This is reported by the project “Book of Executioners of the Ukrainian People”.
We are talking about Alexander Abramov and Igor Gorbunov, who, after the start of the full-scale invasion, arrived in occupied Melitopol and introduced themselves to employees of local enterprises as “new investors from Moscow.”
According to the court, the Russians, with the support of the Russian military and the occupation administration, seized the property of the companies “Melitopol Chereshnya”, “Vrozhayny”, and “Almin-98”.
In March 2022, armed Russian military personnel stormed a corporate office in Melitopol. They beat a security guard, broke down the door, and forcibly took control of the premises.
Later, the occupiers seized production facilities in the villages of Sadovoe and Kostyantynivka.
The investigation established that Abramov and Gorbunov put pressure on employees of the enterprises and threatened those who refused to work for them.
“Those who disagreed were threatened with being sent to the basement, and employees were forced to harvest, which was then exported to Russia and temporarily occupied Crimea,” the case materials state.
To hide the illegal seizure of the business, in 2022 a company was registered in Russia with a name similar to the Ukrainian enterprise – OOO “PKF “Melitopolskaya Chereshnya”.
After that, the Russians turned to the occupation authorities to establish themselves as “temporary administrators” of the seized assets.
Later, they began selling Ukrainian agricultural products through Russian companies. Among other things, it was about flax seeds and apples. In 2024, they even registered the trademark “Melitopol Cherries” in Russia.
The court found the actions of Abramov and Gorbunov to be a violation of the laws and customs of war.
In addition to 12 years in prison, the convicts were ordered to recover over 170 million hryvnia in damages in favor of the Melitopol Cherries company, over 35 million hryvnia in favor of the Vrozhayny enterprise, and another 1 million hryvnia in favor of the owner of the enterprises.
The sentence will come into effect after the actual detention of the convicts. They are currently in the territory of the Russian Federation or the occupied territories.
As a reminder, the Security Service of Ukraine reported suspicions against Serbian mercenary Davor Savic, who is suspected of war crimes during the occupation of the Kyiv region in 2022.
As reported, an indictment was sent to the court in Sumy Oblast against a Russian serviceman who, during the occupation of the region, ordered a tank to open fire on a residential building . A 61-year-old civilian died as a result of the shelling.
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