Russia sentences abducted Ukrainian Orthodox priest to 14 years for 'spying for Ukraine'

A fake ‘court’ in occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast has sentenced Father Kostiantyn (Maksymov) to 14 years’ imprisonment on a surreal charge of ‘spying’ for his own country.  While Russia state media call him merely a “resident of Tokmak” and avoid any mention of his being an Orthodox priest, there are grounds for believing he was abducted in May 2023 for resisting attempts to forcibly merge the Berdiansk Diocese into the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Father Kostiantyn is from the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Tokmak, a city in Zaporizhzhia oblast seized by the Russian invaders in early March 2022.  He and his church are within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church [UOC] which, in contrast to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine [OCU], was under the Moscow Patriarchate.  Such canonical affiliation is, for many Ukrainians, a question of tradition and does did not necessarily equate to pro-Russian views, and certainly not to supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  It is, therefore, significant that Father Kostiantyn’s abduction by the Russians in May 2023 came just days after the occupiers’ forced the merger of the Berdiansk Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church into the Russian Orthodox Church.  Later, when the NGO Forum 18 tried to find out where Father Kostiantyn had been taken, they were given no information about his whereabouts by Russian-installed ‘official’, Artem Sharlay, but were told that the Ukrainian priest had opposed this forced merger.

As reported, Father Kostiantyn disappeared on 15 May 2023 after heading off from Tokmak, via occupied Crimea, on a humanitarian mission.  It was known that he had reached the administrative border with Crimea, after which all contact was lost.  For almost ten months, nothing was known about his whereabouts or even whether he was alive.

On March 29, 2024, a Russian-controlled Telegram channel reported that the so-called ‘Zaporizhzhia regional prosecutor’ had confirmed the ‘indictment’ against Father Kostiantyn who was described only as “40-year-old Ukrainian citizen Kostiantyn Maksymov”.

Russia is continuing to illegally apply its legislation on occupied territory and accused Father Kostiantyn of ‘spying’ under Article 276 of its criminal code.  It was claimed that from April 2023 to February 2023, Father Kostiantyn (referred to only by his surname) had used the Internet to pass a Ukrainian Security Service [SB] official the coordinates of Russian air defence means deployed in Tokmak and surrounding area.

Even were these ‘charges’ true, it would in no way be ‘spying’ for a Ukrainian citizen to inform the Ukrainian authorities about enemy activity on Ukrainian soil.  Russia can invent as many fake ‘referendums’, but Zaporizhzhia oblast remains internationally recognized as sovereign territory of Ukraine, with Russia an illegal occupying force.

These are, in fact, the standard ‘charges’ that the invaders lay against civilians abducted from occupied territory and there is no reason to assume that they have any basis in fact. The stubborn silence about the fact that the Russians have abducted a Ukrainian Orthodox priest, on the other hand, makes it seem even more likely that the abduction and charges were linked with Father Kostiantyn’s opposition to the Diocese being forcibly merged with the Russian Orthodox Church which, at least at leadership level, is playing an active role in supporting Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. 

There are, furthermore, no grounds for believing that Father Kostiantyn had anything even remotely resembling a fair trial.  The illegal ‘court proceedings’ were reported to have begun on 6 June 2024, with probably no more than two or three ‘hearings’ counting the reading of the sentence.  Such speed is very often because the person has been held incommunicado and tortured until they agree to sign whatever ‘confession’ is thrust in front of them.  No information is provided about the ‘judges’ who passed the 14-year maximum-security sentence against the Ukrainian priest, nor about the ‘state prosecutor’ who demanded this.  There is nothing to suggest that he had an independent lawyer, and, even without the secrecy of an occupation ‘court’, Russia stages all such ‘spying trials’ behind closed doors.

Although the Russian occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’ is mentioned as having passed ‘sentence’, it is not even clear where this so-called ‘trial’ took place.  The state-controlled TASS press agency reported from occupied Simferopol (Crimea) on 2 August, citing the press service of the occupation Crimean ‘prosecutor’ as its source.