Authorities say Russians and Ukrainians are collaborating to kind crime rings on Indonesia’s most well-known vacation island.
Printed On 19 Sep 2025
An Indonesian court docket has sentenced a Ukrainian man to life in jail for his function in a large-scale Russian-Ukrainian drug ring working on the vacationer island of Bali.
Thai authorities arrested Roman Nazarenko, who was listed as a fugitive by Interpol, at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport in December as he tried to flee to Dubai, then extradited him to Indonesia.
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Nazarenko had spent seven months on the run after police raided a vacation villa in Bali in Might 2024, discovering a laboratory within the basement used to develop marijuana and produce a precursor of the artificial drug ecstasy.
Throughout Nazarenko’s trial at Denpasar District Courtroom on Thursday, prosecutors argued he was one of many masterminds of a drug ring.
The Ukrainian claimed he was tricked into becoming a member of the ring and sat silently because the panel of three judges handed down a life sentence.
“There is no such thing as a motive to forgive or justify the defendant; he deserves to be punished commensurate with what he has completed,” presiding Decide Eni Martiningrum mentioned.
“His crime may harm the psychological state of the younger technology.”
Marthinus Hukom, the top of Indonesia’s Nationwide Narcotics Company, mentioned there’s a rising subject of Russians and Ukrainians collaborating in crime rings on Indonesia’s most well-known vacation island.
“This can be a very distinctive phenomenon,” Hukom mentioned.
“Two nations which might be at struggle, however right here in Bali, their residents are companions in crime, partaking in illicit drug trafficking.”
Authorities additionally arrested two Ukrainian brothers, Mykyta Volovod and Ivan Volovod, and a Russian man, Konstantin Krutz, through the earlier raid on the villa. The identical court docket sentenced every of the lads to twenty years in jail.
Prosecutors argued that the Volovod brothers had been the drug producers, whereas Krutz offered their product.
Prosecutors have additionally recognized a Russian man, Oleg Tkachuck, who they consider to be the drug ring’s general mastermind. He stays at massive.
In accordance with the Volovod brothers, Tkachuck paid them $30,000 in September 2023 to put in gear on the villa to provide hydroponic marijuana and mephedrone – used within the manufacturing of ecstasy tablets.
In accordance with prosecutors, Nazarenko recruited the opposite convicted males for Tkachuck, in addition to offered gear and marijuana seeds, and oversaw operations of the lab.
Nazarenko argued in court docket that he had been tricked by Tkachuck and expressed regret for his function within the drug operation.
Indonesia has among the strictest drug legal guidelines within the area, with drug smugglers generally executed by firing squad.
Bali, in the meantime, has change into a magnet for hundreds of individuals from Russia and Ukraine fleeing the horrors of struggle since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in early 2022.
Russian guests, particularly, greater than tripled between 2022 and 2024 – rising from 57,860 to 180,215 final yr.
