Ukrainian tortured, starved and sentenced to 11 years for trying to rescue his mother from Kharkiv oblast war zone

Scroll to the end for updated information about the torture that Ivan Zabavsky was subjected to, as well as other forms of lawless and brutal treatment

A court in St. Petersburg has sentenced Ivan Zabavsky to 11 years on mystery ‘spying’ charges, laid long after the 29-year-old Ukrainian was seized by the Russian invaders in Kharkiv oblast.  MediaZona reported on 30 January 2025 that the 11-year harsh-regime sentence had been passed by the St. Petersburg municipal court.  The young Ukrainian abducted by an invading force from Ukrainian territory was illegally charged with ‘spying’, under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code. 

MediaZona has been following Zabavsky’s fate since his official ‘arrest’ in June 2023.  Zabavsky was himself living and working in Kharkiv, however his mother, Maryna Zabavska, was in Tavilzhanka, a village in the Kupiansk raion of Kharkiv oblast, Tavilzhanka  came under occupation after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and although liberated by Ukraine’s Armed Forces, remained on the frontline of the fighting.  In September 2022, Maryna’s sister was killed in shelling and with the Russians approaching the village, Maryna Zabavska wanted to get to her son in Kharkiv.  It was, however, impossible to travel directly, and she was forced to move through both occupied Ukrainian territory and Russia.   

All contact with the village had been lost, and Ivan Zabavsky set off from Kharkiv to try to find his mother and, presumably, bring her to (relative) safety.  This was a frontline zone and the only way of getting to Tavilzhanka was by bringing humanitarian aid.  His mother has since told Mediazona that Ivan borrowed a friend’s car and filled it with bread, etc. to take in, with his sole aim being to reach his mother and get her to safety. 

Zabavsky disappeared, with Maryna learning later when she returned to Ukraine and spoke with neighbours that her son had been taken away by Russian invaders. She had only managed to contact relatives a few days after leaving the village and found out then that her son had set off to rescue her. 

The Russians have been abducting civilians since February 2022, with Russia’s defence ministry typically either denying any knowledge of the abducted person or asserting that the person was “detained for resisting the special military operation” [Russia’s euphemism for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine].  The latter claim was made to Maryna when, in May 2023, she finally received a response to her formal requests for information, with the defence ministry also confirming that her son was held in Russia.

This was just two months before it was reported, in late July 2023, that Zabavsky had been “arrested” on spying changes, with Mediazona first noticing the case because of an appeal lodged against the ruling by the Petrogradsky district court on 22 June 2023, remanding him in custody. It is rather ominous that this appeal was then suddenly withdrawn, with that, almost certainly, under pressure from the ‘investigators’, possibly with the help of the state-provided ‘lawyer’. 

Even Russian legislation has yet to come up with a formal charge for ‘resisting the special military operation’, so it is likely that Zabavsky was only formally detained on the spying charge.  He would, however, have been held incommunicado in Russian captivity for around nine months prior to that 22 June ruling.

The ‘trial’ began in the summer of 2024.  Russia’s FSB has been using ‘spying’ charges against Ukrainian political prisoners since 2014 with all such ‘trials’ held behind closed doors.  Even where the person has an independent lawyer, the latter is forced, on threat of criminal prosecution, to sign a non-disclosure commitment.  It is thus impossible to know how exactly Ivan Zabavsky was supposed to have ‘been spying’ in his own country when seized by a Russian invading force, and what, if any, ‘evidence’ was provided.  

Such ‘spying’ charges and long sentences have been handed down repeatedly against Ukrainian civilians abducted from occupied territory, and held for up to 18 months or more before any charges were laid.  Convictions and long sentences are effectively guaranteed, with ‘judges’ knowing to ask no questions.  Iryna Horobtsova was, for example, abducted from her home in Kherson in May 2022.  Over two years later, she was sentenced to 10 and a half years for ‘spying’ which the prosecution claimed she had engaged in long after she had been taken prisoner.  These are no grounds for assuming that the situation was significantly different in the case of Ivan Zabavsky.

Update 

The 29-year-old has managed to pass on a note in which he spoke of the torture he has endured in Russian captivity.  Mediazona quotes the letter as speaking of “the long and terrible ten months in captivity when a day seemed like a year, when I was beaten at least two, sometimes three, times a day.”  Zabavsky also wrote of constant hunger, with prisoners given portions of no less than 100-150 grams.

“Electricity, rubber batons, my legs were like traffic lights, with some bruises fading, others appearing, and it was like that every day.”

There is nothing to indicate where Zabavsky was held prisoner before Russia came up with the ‘spying’ charges.  Zabavsky’s lawyer, Andrei Chertlov, did, however, confirm that the young Ukrainian had been held for around ten months, without any charges being laid.  He noted that this was widespread practice. He shrugged his shoulders when asked why the ‘trial’ had taken place in St Petersburg.

Worth pointing out that the lack of charges means that a person is not formally even imprisoned, with such periods typically used for the horrific torture that Zabavsky describes.

The person who showed the note to Mediazona reported that Zabavsky had ‘admitted guilt, that he had helped Ukraine’s Security Service, and “carried out those actions mentioned in the case material.”  He insisted, however, that he had done so purely in order to save his mother who had ended up in a battle zone.