A Russian court has sentenced two Ukrainians, Nonna Halka (b. 16.10.1978) and her nephew, Victor Meshniakov (b. 10.05.1998) to 15 years’ imprisonment on grotesque ‘spying’ charges. Both were abducted from occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast in 2023, with it quite possible that Halka was targeted because her son is serving in Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
As well as a son in the Armed Forces, Halka has two underage children. There is no information as to when or where she was taken prisoner, however the Centre for Journalist Investigations reports that Meshniakov disappeared in May 2023.
Their ‘trial’ was held behind closed doors at the Rostov regional court in Russia, with the Memorial Society able to report only that there were five ‘hearings’. The Russian prosecution claimed that, in August 2022 Nonna Halka had, at the request of her Ukrainian defender son, gathered information about the places of deployment and movements of Russian military technology and personnel in the Vasylivka raion. The information had, purportedly, been passed on via Messenger, with Meshniakov helping his aunt.
Both Halka and Meshniakov were charged under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code. Russia is brazenly violating the commitments it made under international law through its application of its legislation on occupied territory. The situation in this case is especially lawless given that, in August 2022, Moscow could not even hide behind its fake ‘referendum’ and false claim that ‘Zaporizhzhia oblast’ had ‘joined the Russian Federation.’ Russia was, and remains, an invading state, waging a war of aggression against Ukraine. Even if Halka and Meshnikov had passed on information, which is by no means guaranteed, they would have been legitimately helping Ukraine’s army to defend the country.
Among the most common victims of Russia’s enforced disappearances; ‘arrests’; torture and fake trials of Ukrainians from occupied territory are those who either were themselves in the Armed Forces or who have close relations defending Ukraine. ‘Proof’, once a person has been seized, could be as little as a photo on a person’s mobile. There could, in fact, be none since these ‘trials’ are held in secret, with convictions and long sentences effectively predetermined.
Memorial reports that 16 cases involving charges of ‘spying’ have been brought before the Rostov regional court since June 2023. ‘Spying’ trials have been one of the staple forms of persecution on occupied territory since 2014, with Russia now using them to formally imprison a huge number of Ukrainian civilians abducted back in 2022 or 2023 and held incommunicado, in some cases for well over two years. Many of the sentences are claimed to have been passed by illegitimate occupation ‘courts’.
See:
Mariupol woman sentenced to 11 years in Russia’s mass copy-paste ‘spying trials’ against Ukrainians
