Negligence was demonstrated by a missile
Kommersant has learned of the first sentence handed down to an air defense officer for negligence shown during the repelling of a supposed attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Crimea. Instead of an enemy drone, a Russian military Mi-8 helicopter was shot down. The culprit of the emergency was sentenced to a term in a penal colony, to which he will go on his own. At the same time, the court refused to collect from him the Defense Ministry's request for almost 200 million rubles — the cost of the helicopter.
Igor Pashkov, who served as a senior assistant to the operational duty command post of one of the air defense units stationed in Crimea, appeared before the Sevastopol garrison military court on charges of negligence that resulted in the death of three people through negligence (Part 3 of Article 293 of the Criminal Code). He faced up to seven years in prison, but the trial court limited himself to three years in a penal colony and a one-year ban on holding positions related to the implementation of organizational and administrative functions in the civil service and local government.
As the court established, at 6:30 a.m. on October 18, 2023, when Captain Pashkov was on combat duty, he received a report about the detection of a low-flying, low-speed aerial target. The reporter, the head of the combat crew, as expected, gave him his call sign. But the officer who received the message made a mistake in the call sign, reporting to his superiors that the unidentified target was in another location (duty is carried out in sectors) and a decision must be made to destroy it. The head of the crew later clarified that the target was a helicopter flying with its lights on, but it was too late. Mr. Pashkov did not believe the additional reports, and the investigation showed that there were “no friendly aircraft” at the location where the target was detected. As a result, two minutes after the first message, the target was destroyed by a missile fired from the TOR-M2DT anti-aircraft missile system. A couple of minutes later, it became clear that the air defense had targeted its own - the downed Mi-8MTV-5-1 crashed into the Black Sea, three members of its crew with the rank of captains were killed.
On the same day, the military investigative bodies of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case on the grounds of a crime under Part 5 of Article 340 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of the rules for carrying out combat duty in combat conditions, which entailed serious consequences). True, it was investigated in relation to unidentified persons, until Igor Pashkov confessed in May last year, admitting that he could have made a fatal mistake.
The investigation accused him of negligence. According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the officer, due to his negligent attitude to duty, failed to identify the aircraft and the location of its discovery, which was the reason for providing false information and led to the Russian Aerospace Forces helicopter being hit by "friendly fire".
In the garrison court, the officer admitted his guilt in full, but at the same time, taking advantage of Article 51 of the Constitution, he refrained from testifying. Having sentenced Mr. Pashkov, the court collected 5 million rubles from him in favor of the Ministry of Defense, which valued the downed helicopter at 204 million, filing a corresponding claim for compensation for property damage. The widows of the pilots, who expected to receive 3 million rubles in moral damages from the military, were awarded 1 million rubles each.
In the Southern District Military Court (Rostov-on-Don), all parties, including the Ministry of Defense, appealed the verdict. The representative of the victims, seeking a more severe punishment for the defendant, in particular, pointed out that the court of first instance "did not take into account the nature and degree of public danger of the crime" and the ensuing consequences "in the form of the death of three professional pilots while performing tasks of a special military operation and the destruction of an expensive combat unit (helicopter)."
It was also noted that the garrison court, as a circumstance mitigating the punishment, unreasonably took into account the fact that the defendant Pashkov sent 10 thousand rubles to the victims, since they did not accept them and returned them.
Checking the fairness of the sentence, the appeal noted that it correctly indicated as mitigating circumstances Mr. Pashkov's admission of guilt; remorse for the act; being brought to criminal responsibility for the first time; having a son with a disability dependent on him; positive characteristics; a state award and the status of a combat veteran, as well as an apology to the victims and other actions aimed at making amends for the harm. The court found no grounds for a more severe punishment for Mr. Pashkov, nor for increasing the penalties for the military, concluding that they were consistent with the principles of reasonableness and fairness. The district court ruled to reduce the officer's sentence to two years and ten months, considering that it was from him that the investigation learned all the circumstances of the tragedy in the skies over Crimea.
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