Ukrainian living in Russia sentenced to 13 years on ‘treason’ charge for sending money to family in Ukraine

While Ukrainians living in free Ukraine are in constant danger from Russian missiles, those Ukrainian citizens living on occupied territory, or in the Russian Federation, face ever-increasing threat of persecution on surreal ‘spying’; ‘treason’ or ‘sabotage’ charges.  One such victim is Ostap Bohdanovych Demchuk, sentenced in Russia to 13 years on appallingly cynical ‘treason’ charges and just declared a political prisoner by the authoritative Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project.

Ostap Demchuk was born on 7 July 1975 in a village near Lviv, but later moved to Magdagachi, in the Amur oblast (Russia) and has Russian citizenship.  It seems likely that the FSB’s interest in him was prompted solely by his Ukrainian nationality and relatives in Ukraine as Demchuk, an electric locomotive driver who is married with one daughter, does not appear to have spoken out in any public way against Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

He was violently seized by armed officers on 25 June 2023.  The FSB claimed that Demchuk had, from 18 July 2022 to 9 January 2023, “made over ten money transfers for purchase by Ukraine’s Armed Forces of kamikaze drones, quadcopters, ammunition and military technology in order to use it against the Russian Federation armed forces and in that way take part in activities aimed against Russia’s security”.

According to the court’s press release, the money had been paid to a Ukrainian woman, with the latter claimed to have been collecting money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces “for their subsequent use in the interests of Ukrainian armed formations opposing the Russian Federation in the special military operation zone”

In a letter received from Demchuk in SIZO [remand prison], he wrote that he was innocent.  He explained that he had sent the money for his mother (b. 1951) and disabled brother who live near Lviv.  Neither his mother, nor brother, have bank cards, so he sent the money to a female relative who passed it on.  He wrote, in the letter published by Pyervy Otdel, that he had always helped them financially and that, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine [which he uses Russia’s official euphemism for, namely ‘special military operation’], he had visited them every year and had donated money to the church there.

It seems probable that Demchuk’s Ukrainian roots had been noted earlier, as he was seized from his workplace in January 2023 after a petrol bomb attack on a military recruitment office in Magdagachi.  He was ‘interrogated’ for seven hours, with heavy pressure, including threats of dismissal from work and problems for his wife and daughter, put on him to get him to ‘confess’ to carrying out the attack.  Even more chillingly, four men and one woman staged a similar ‘interrogation’ of his 17-year-old daughter, with this lasting four hours.  She too was not subjected to physical torture, but they threatened that if she did not say that her father had carried out the petrol bomb attack, she wouldn’t be able to finish school and no institute would accept her, etc.  The FSB also carried out a search of their home, took away computer technology, telephones, etc. and also interrogated their friends.

Demchuk wrote that neither he, nor his daughter, had provided the ‘confessions’ demanded and that they had “found the attacker”.  He was writing from SIZO, so it is unclear whether he genuinely believed that the actual culprit had been found, and not just a person whom the FSB managed to intimidate into ‘confessing’.

The FSB had returned all that was removed in March 2023, except for Demchuk’s phone.  It was clearly from this that they had discovered the money transfers to a Ukrainian account and decided to come up with a staged violent arrest and ‘state treason’ charges under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code.   Demchuk himself writes that they changed the indictment four times, before he was finally charged with ‘treason’. 

The ‘trial’ was held behind closed doors, with Demchuk sentenced on 16 July 2024 by the Amur regional court to 13 years’ maximum security prison colony; a fine of 400 thousand roubles; as well as an 18-month term of restriction of liberty following the sentence.  The sentence was passed by ‘judge’ Tatyana Anatolievna Studilko and upheld, on 20 September 2024 by the Firth court of appeal.

Memorial writes that it is inclined to believe that Demchuk did, as he asserts, send money as financial support for his pensioner mother and disabled brother.  It stresses, however, that, even had the money been sent to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, there would have been no grounds for the criminal charges.  The ‘financing’ element was added to Russia’s Article 275 on ‘treason’ back in 2012, with the sentence for such supposed ‘treason’ increased to up to life imprisonment in April 2023.  This, Memorial states, was “undoubtedly in order to intimidate all those opposed to Russia’s foreign policy and its war against Ukraine”.