Putin jails ‘strong as a rock’ weightlifter for ‘assassination plot’ | World | News

A 42-year-old Ukrainian weightlifter has been sentenced to 19 years in prison after appearing in a court in Moscow. Yulia Lemeshchenko was accused of planning sabotage and assassinations in Russia on behalf of the Ukrainian security services. Prosecutors said she had blown up power lines outside St Petersburg. She was also accused of travelling to Voronezh to stalk out and kill a Russian air force commander. 

While not denying the accusations against her in the courtroom, she proclaimed that her conscience was clear. Her final statements to the court were recorded on Russian news websites. Lemeshchenko had stopped appearing at the gym she regularly trained at in 2023, which prompted confusion from others. She became a weightlifting champion in Ukraine in 2021.

Appearing in court, she said: “Maybe I am making my position worse with my words, but my honour and conscience are more important to me. I did what I considered necessary.”

She also told the court about the devastating effects of the Russian invasion of her home suburb, Kharkiv. She said that some of her friends had died as a result of the war.

She said: “I don’t think of myself as a cowardly or weak person, so I decided to fight against Russian military aggression.” She is a Russian citizen but moved to Ukraine in 2014 with her husband and child.

Oleksandr Chernyshov, head of the Kharkiv branch of Ukraine’s powerlifting federation, said: “She was driven, hard working, she trained hard and achieved real results.”

Meanwhile, Dmytro Pavlenko, who was her trainer, revealed that she had disappeared without explanation. “I asked her where she went, and she said: ‘I’m in Kyiv, all is OK.’ I asked: ‘What’s going on?’ and she said: ‘I’ll explain everything later,” he said.

Russia’s FSB security agency said in a statement that Lemeshchenko had been sent to “carry out diversionary and terrorist acts against energy and transport infrastructure, as well as against personnel of the Russian ministry of defence”.

She told the court: “I am not a citizen of the country for which I decided to fight, but nevertheless I consider Ukraine my home. I love the country, I love Kharkiv.”

Chernyshov added: “Could she have been capable of it? Absolutely. She was one of those people who are capable of big feats. She was very pro-Ukrainian, more than some Ukrainians are. And she was as strong as a rock.”