A Rostov Region resident has been convicted of setting fire to relay cabinets.
A military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Daniil Panov to a lengthy prison term, finding him guilty of two terrorist attacks.
"Caucasian Knot" wrote that in the southern regions of Russia, after the start of large-scale military operations in Ukraine, there have been repeated arson attacks on military registration and enlistment offices and railway relay cabinets. A wave of such arson attacks, in particular, was recorded after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia. On September 30, 2022, General Staff spokesman Vladimir Tsimlyansky stated that the arson attacks on military registration and enlistment offices will be classified as terrorist attacks; investigators also sometimes apply the article on sabotage to such cases.
Daniil Panov was charged with committing two terrorist acts by prior conspiracy (Part 2 of Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code). This article carries a sentence of twelve to twenty years in prison with one to two years of restricted freedom.
According to the prosecution, in late May 2025, Panov entered into correspondence with an unknown individual and agreed to set fire to relay cabinets on a railway in the Rostov Region. The interlocutor promised him a monetary reward for these arsons.
On June 5, the unknown individual directed Panov to the specific locations of signaling relay cabinets, and on June 10, transferred 3,000 rubles to his bank account to purchase materials needed for the arson, the press service of the Southern District Military Court reported.
The court determined that Panov committed two arsons of relay cabinets on the evenings of June 10 and 20. He was sentenced to 13 years in a maximum-security penal colony, with the first three years to be served in prison.
The court did not specify whether Panov accepted the charges against him. Caucasian Knot has not yet received any comments from the convicted person or his lawyer regarding his plans to appeal the sentence.
Daniil Panov was born in January 1997 in the village of Yulovskiy, Salsky District, Rostov Region, according to his entry in the Rosfinmonitoring register of terrorists and extremists. His details were added to the list just a month after the second arson, July 21, 2025, according to a Telegram bot tracking list updates.
The wording that "unidentified individuals" are forcing teenagers or young adults to film arson and then send it to the "customer" suggests that investigators have found a simple way to prove the crimes, as Roman Melnichenko, a candidate of legal sciences, previously noted.