Military court sentences defendants in plot to assassinate Margarita Simonyan to between 6 and 20 years in prison

A military court sentenced the defendants in the case over preparing an assassination attempt on Margarita Simonyan to prison terms ranging from 6 to 20 years.

According to investigators, in 2022 Mikhail Balashov, an employee at a Moscow auto repair shop, organized a cell of the nationalist group “National Socialism/White Power” (designated terrorists and banned in Russia). Its members organized attacks on foreigners and LGBT people (designated extremists and banned in Russia).

As the Investigative Committee reports, in the summer of 2023 Balashov received an offer to kill Simonyan. Together with the other defendants in the case, he kept the RT editor-in-chief under surveillance and reported back to those who ordered it. Investigators did not specify who placed the order.

Simonyan was supposed to be shot with an assault rifle that had been hidden in one of the garages. Balashov was detained when he tried to retrieve the weapon.

He ultimately received 20 years in prison (four years in a prison facility, the rest in a maximum-security penal colony), while the other eleven participants were given between 18 and 6 years in penal colonies.

Since most of the defendants were minors at the time of their detention, the case was heard behind closed doors.