Alexey Marushchenko, the founder of the so-called Yastreb PMC who is already on trial over the alleged deception of nearly 100 contract soldiers, now faces additional charges, including organizing the murder of a serviceman. The newspaper Kommersant reported the new details.
The case is being heard by the Belgorod District Court. According to the court record, Marushchenko is accused of violating the inviolability of a home, fraud, extortion, illegal arms trafficking, kidnapping, abuse of power involving torture, and organizing a murder.
Kommersant writes that the defendant gave confessional testimony. In particular, he acknowledged involvement in the kidnapping of two people, torture, and violence against those who questioned his authority. The criminal case against Marushchenko was opened in February 2025. At first, the main allegation was fraud: investigators say he and other defendants took money from contract soldiers while promising service in a PMC instead of the Defense Ministry and better conditions.
Later, after the case materials were sent to court in late May, new episodes became known. Investigators believe Marushchenko organized the kidnapping of war correspondent Roman Semyonov, the killing of private Rashid Adzhiyev, and the beating of four other servicemen. According to Kommersant, the victims found out that Marushchenko had been posing as a GRU officer even though he was not a serviceman, and he then decided to take revenge.
According to investigators, Marushchenko’s subordinates took the men into a forest and beat them for four days until they acknowledged him as their commander.
Investigators link Adzhiyev’s killing to the soldier’s refusal to obey orders and what was described as disrespect toward Marushchenko. The report says he ordered subordinates to kill the private “to maintain the authority” of the command; the serviceman was then taken into a forest and shot.
The accusation over Semyonov’s kidnapping, the newspaper says, is based in part on testimony from PMC fighter Ivan Timokhov, who has already been sentenced to five years in prison in that case. According to the Investigative Committee, Timokhov, acting on Marushchenko’s orders, took the war correspondent from St. Petersburg to the Belgorod region, where he was kept for 12 days in a coffin buried vertically in the ground. Semyonov’s wife was allegedly extorted for one million rubles under threats to kill him. Marushchenko is also accused of stealing pistols, assault rifles, grenade launchers, and ammunition from a military unit between August 2024 and February 2025; Kommersant reports that a police lieutenant colonel from the Kursk region, Igor Dushkin, helped him sell the weapons.