A former political prisoner of the Kremlin Gennadiy Afanasyev died at the front.
The deceasedʼs wife informed "Krym.Realii" ["Crimea.Realities"] about this.
The Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People informed "Radio Svoboda" ["Radio Liberty"] that Afanasyev fought as a member of the 130th Battalion of the 241st Brigade of Military Intelligence and died in Luhansk region near Bilohorivka.
Afanasyev is one of the defendants in the case of the so-called "terrorists of the Sentsov group." He was arrested on May 9, 2014 on one of the streets of Simferopol. The FSB stated that Afanasyev, together with Oleg Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko and Oleksiy Chirnii, was a member of the subversive terrorist group "Right Sector" and was preparing a number of terrorist attacks on the territory of Crimea. Immediately after this publication appeared, Russian federal channels showed news stories in which Afanasyev admits that he prepared terrorist acts and names Sentsov as the leader of the group.
In June 2016, Afanasyev was deported to Ukraine, and he and another political prisoner, Yurii Soloshenko, were exchanged for Elena Glishchinska and Vitaly Didenko, who were involved in the separatism case.