Sergeant Ivan Selin. Photo from personal archive

A 20-year-old cadet at the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School has confessed to sabotaging the parachutes of his 24-year-old commander during a training jump, leading to the latter’s death earlier this summer, according to Kommersant, a state-affiliated business daily, and VCHK-OGPU, a Telegram channel with ties to Russian security services.

An initial investigation into the incident, which took place on 3 June in Ryazan region, central Russia, concluded that the accused cadet, Ilya Kazantsev, had tied the slings of the main and reserve parachutes of his commander, Sergeant Ivan Selin, causing his death, after he had submitted Kazantsev and several other cadets to “violence and humiliation”.

However, according to Kommersant and VCHK-OGPU’s sources, there is evidence to suggest that the cadet may not have acted alone: DNA from multiple individuals was recovered from the deceased Selin’s parachutes, though only Kazantsev’s was identified. Additionally, at least one other parachute with tied slings was found — belonging to a company commander who, like Selin, was a veteran of the war in Ukraine but, by chance, did not jump that day.

One figure potentially implicated is Warrant Officer Vladislav Seleznyov, a former deputy platoon commander who had been removed from his post and replaced by Selin in January. According to the same sources, Seleznyov, whose father is reportedly a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent, may have coordinated with Kazantsev and others to arrange the murder out of revenge.

Another is Oleg Ponomaryov, now head of the school, who was in charge of an airborne base in Omsk, western Siberia, when its barracks collapsed in 2015, killing 23 paratroopers. At the time, he escaped criminal liability after the charges against him were reclassified, before the statute of limitations eventually expired.

To limit the attention paid to these figures, according to VCHK-OGPU, the investigation “settled” on the explanation that Kazantsev had acted to cause Selin’s death “single-handedly”.

According to Kommersant, Selin’s relatives have appealed to Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, asking him to take personal control of the investigation.

“It is easier to blame everything on a conflict between two cadets than to prove that a crime was committed by a group of people by prior agreement. The school’s management is afraid of publicity,” the appeal reads.