The Yenakiieve inter-district court of the self-proclaimed DPR sentenced former participant in the war in Ukraine and traffic police inspector Aralkin to two years in a strict-regime penal colony in a case on abuse of office involving torture. Mediazona drew attention to the ruling.
According to the verdict, Aralkin was appointed senior traffic police inspector in May 2023 together with another officer whose name was withheld. On the evening of June 14, 2025, they were on duty in a patrol car along with two other traffic police employees.
The officers spotted a car being driven by a minor and ordered it to stop. The teenager ignored the demand, and a chase began. About ten minutes later, the verdict says, Aralkin leaned out of the patrol car window and repeatedly threatened the youth with physical violence in a raised voice.
About twenty minutes later, the car stopped for reasons beyond the teenager’s control because of the terrain of the area he had driven onto. The officers then approached the vehicle, and, according to the court, Aralkin grabbed the minor by his clothes and arms, pulled him out, swept his legs from under him, threw him to the ground, and struck him five times with his hands and feet on the head and torso. The second police officer then hit the youth twice more.
After that, Aralkin went to the trunk of the patrol car, took out a Kalashnikov rifle, and struck the teenager on the legs with the butt. An examination later recorded multiple bruises, a contusion of the thoracic spine, and an intracutaneous hemorrhage on the head.
Aralkin admitted guilt and entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement. He testified against the colleague involved in the beating and also told investigators that this officer and another person might have been involved in an attempted bribe. The court also treated as mitigating factors a donation to a church, certificates awarded for “carrying out combat tasks” during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and his status as a combat veteran. Although the minimum punishment under the article is four years, the court applied Article 64 of the criminal code, which allows a lighter sentence in exceptional circumstances.