Seversky Wind: trial of the last member of a violent gang near Moscow has begun
On August 14, the Moscow Regional Court began considering the case of Mikhail Pankov, the last member of the brutal Severskie gang outside Moscow. The criminal group has been operating in Sergiev Posad for almost 20 years. The defendant was a gang driver, but the investigation is confident that he was involved in several murders and attempted murders. In total, the members of the group are charged with 23 serious crimes, and the leader of the Seversky committed suicide in jail after his arrest.
What is Pankov accused of?
Mikhail Pankov, a native of Krasnozavodsk near Moscow, is accused of banditry, murders committed by an organized group, attempted murder of two or more persons, illegal acquisition and possession of weapons and explosive devices. The investigation insists that the defendant personally participated in the murders — following the instructions of the gang leader, took part in planning the crimes and acted as a driver in them.
Pankov was arrested in absentia in 2023, he was on the federal wanted list for about three years, but eventually he was detained in the Ryazan region.
As follows from the case file, the defendant joined the Moscow region group in 2010. Shortly before that, the creator and leader of the Seversky, Viktor Lazovsky, was killed — in the fall of 2009, he was ambushed at a campsite where the authority came to relax with his mistress, and the bodies were then dumped into the lake. Dmitry Gladyshev, a native of Krasnozavodsk, organized this double murder in order to lead the gang himself. It was under his command that Mikhail Pankov was.
As follows from the case file, the new leader feared the revenge of the brother of the murdered authority, Yevgeny Lazovsky, so in February 2010 he gave the order to eliminate him. Lazovsky was followed and found out that in the mornings he worked out at the Temp stadium on Tsentralnaya Street, arriving there with the driver. After examining the territory of the sports complex, the bandits hid next to it a bag with two Chinese Kalashnikov assault rifles equipped for shooting.
On the morning of February 15, 2010, Mikhail Pankov brought two performers to the stadium on the Niva. When Lazovsky's car arrived there and two people got out of it, the bandits, having received an order on the radio, shot them. But for some reason, the alleged victim changed her daily routine that day and did not go to the gym. Instead, his friend and the driver were in the car. Both died on the spot, and a gym security guard was seriously wounded.
In November 2019, according to investigators, Pankov took part in the murder of one of the gang leaders, Alexander Plotnikov. He began to interfere with the leader of the Seversky Gladyshev and he decided to eliminate him.
On November 19, 2019, in accordance with the developed plan, Pankov and Gladyshev arrived in the village of Pogorelka in the Yaroslavl region, where Plotnikov lived. They brought a metal detector with them and invited the owner to go with them to look for coins in the field. In fact, the bandits planned to take Plotnikov to a deserted place and kill him there. The plan worked — Gladyshev shot Plotnikov with a pistol. Pankov, according to the case file, "observed the surrounding situation" in order to give a sign in case of danger. After making sure that Plotnikov was dead, Pankov drove his car to the crime scene, loaded the corpse there, took it to the village of Kostyanovo and buried it.
Grouping from a rocking chair
The Seversky group was created in May 1997 in Sergiev Posad by criminal boss Viktor Lazovsky. The backbone of the gang was made up of athletes who knew each other well from rocking chairs and sections, and the local restaurant "Sever" became a favorite gathering place for bandits.
The criminal gang quickly took over commercial enterprises in the city and spread their influence to almost the entire Moscow region, engaging in extortion and murder of those who refused to pay. All gang members received monthly salaries and bonuses, and strict discipline was established in the group. Its leader personally planned the crimes, bought weapons and distributed the money received from the protected businessmen.
After defeating the gang, the police discovered numerous weapons caches containing dozens of Kalashnikov assault rifles, Glock and PM pistols, Vepr, Benelli, Browning hunting carbines, submachine guns, F-1 grenades, homemade magnetic mines, TNT sticks, and even anti-tank grenades for the RPG-18 hand grenade launcher.
The gang finally ceased to exist after the arrest of Dmitry Gladyshev, the leader of the Seversky, in December 2019. But he did not live to see the trial, having committed suicide in jail. The rest of the gang members were sentenced to long prison terms.
A likely verdict
Albert Khaleyan, a criminal lawyer and partner at the Vector Prime Moscow Bar Association, is confident that the sentence for Mikhail Pankov will be very harsh, given the charges. By analogy with the previously convicted members of the Seversky organized criminal group, who received sentences ranging from 14 to 25 years in a high-security penal colony, and given that Pankov, according to investigators, is considered one of the active gang members, his sentence is likely to be in the upper part of this range, the lawyer noted.
"The court may recognize as aggravating circumstances the commission of crimes as part of an organized group, multiple episodes, as well as prolonged evasion of justice and being on the federal wanted list," the lawyer emphasized.
As mitigating circumstances, the defense has the right to cite active assistance to the investigation, an admission of guilt, and positive characteristics, but with such a severity of the charges, even their presence is unlikely to significantly reduce the final sentence, the lawyer believes.
Yuri Levin, a lawyer at branch No. 1 of the Moscow Regional Bar Association, a member of the Council of Young Lawyers of the Moscow Region, noted that Pankov was charged with committing a number of particularly serious crimes, but if the statute of limitations expires, he can avoid the maximum possible punishment, that is, life imprisonment.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
