The Kiev district court issued a guilty verdict against the well-known Kharkov separatist Yuri Apukhtin. One of the organizers of the "Russian spring" and the seizure of the Kharkiv regional state administration will spend six years behind bars, writes NR.

69-year-old ex-coordinator of the movement "Southeast" was accused of inciting the pogrom of a bus with security forces on April 8, 2014, as well as calls to "fight this power". The court took the side of the prosecutor's office and recognized Yuri Apukhtin as guilty of mass riots and calls for the violent overthrow of state power in Ukraine.

The separatist also needs to pay about 10,000 hryvnia of legal costs, but at the same time the court withdrew his property.

He himself insisted to the last that his actions were not malicious and could not be interpreted as a violation of the law. Concerning the events of April 8, Apukhtin stated that he had allegedly come to the city center with his wife to visit the pharmacy.

"I did not expect any other decision of the court," the leader of pro-Russian organizations commented on his sentence.

Recall, Yuri Apukhtin was detained together with Spartak Golovachev on April 30, 2014 on suspicion of organizing and mass riots in the territory of Kharkov.

During the search in the office of his organization "Great Russia" the SBU officers seized a G-1 grenade, a Zoraki pistol, adapted for firing live ammunition, ammunition, Russian symbols and postcards of a separatist nature.

Later, his accusation was added with "public calls for changing or overthrowing the state system using the media" (part 3 of Article 109 of the Criminal Code). Despite this, the separatist managed to get out on bail, made by ex-MP Oleg Tsarev, and stay in freedom until December 2014, when he was again arrested. The prosecutor's office demanded the maximum penalty for the organizer of the capture of HOG in the form of 8 years of imprisonment.