The Moscow City Court changed the preventive measure for those involved in the case of an attack on airfields

The Moscow City Court refused to extend the arrest period for truckers in the case of a drone attack on military airfields; the defendants were released from the pre-trial detention center under a ban on certain actions, a participant in the process told RIA Novosti.

Andrei Merkuryev, Alexander Zaitsev, Mikhail Ryumin and Sergei Kanurin are accused of terrorist attack and transportation of explosive devices.

“The Moscow City Court refused to extend the arrest period for the defendants; a preventive measure was chosen against them in the form of a ban on certain actions,” the agency’s interlocutor said.

According to investigators, the drivers were transporting UAVs in trailers, which were used to attack military airfields. The defendants deny guilt, claiming that they did not know about FPV drones.

Merkuryev's lawyer Arthur Katansky confirmed to RIA Novosti the court's refusal to extend his client's arrest. He also said that he had previously filed a motion to terminate the criminal prosecution.

On June 1, 2025, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the Kiev regime carried out a terrorist attack using FPV drones at airfields. All attacks on airfields in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions were repelled, and fires that occurred as a result of attacks on airfields in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions were eliminated, and there were no casualties among personnel.

The next day, the administration of the city of Ust-Kut published a reference to Artem Timofeev, indicating that the man may be involved in a drone attack on the Belaya military airfield in the Irkutsk region on June 1. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation put Timofeev on the wanted list, and two days later his wife Ekaterina was also wanted.

According to the case materials, no later than June 1, 2024, unidentified persons from the leadership of the SBU created a terrorist community with the aim of committing terrorist attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation, which involved natives of Ukraine: Timofeev and Timofeeva, Borisovsky and other unidentified persons, identifying military targets in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions as targets of terrorist attacks. In turn, Timofeev involved drivers Ryumin, Zaitsev, Pytikov, Kanurin and Merkuryev in an organized group to transport weapons of destruction to the sites of attacks.