Russia’s supreme court has rejected a cassation appeal against the evidently lawless 13-year sentence passed on Serhiy Tsyhipa, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, writer and civic activist from Kherson oblast.. This final rejection of justice came just over three years after Tsyhipa was abducted from occupied Nova Kakhovka and subjected to savage torture. There is no possibility that the supreme court ‘judges’ were unaware that they were taking part in a shameful travesty. They were, in addition, reminded of this by the presence in the court on 27 March of diplomatic representatives from Canada and three European countries (the Czech Republic, France and one other).
While the presence of international observers may not stop Russian ‘judges’ from acquiescing to politically motivated sentences, it may well have prompted them to observe one fundamental standard, by opening the court during the announcement of the ruling. Crimean Process, which has followed Tsyhipa’s ‘trial’, notes that this was the first hearing that was not held in the strictest of secrecy. Any such attention from the international community sends an important message to Moscow, and can ultimately, as Serhiy’s wife Olena Tsyhipa hopes, help to secure his release.
Serhiy Tsyhipa (b. 10.08.1961) is from Nova Kakhovka (Kherson oblast) which came under occupation in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At 60, Tsyhipa was too old to enlist in Ukraine’s Armed Forces but had hoped to take part in the Territorial Defence. Russia’s swift seizure of control, however, made any armed defence unrealistic, and during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, Tsyhipa concentrated on volunteering and getting food and medicine to those residents most in need. He also used his social media pages to provide accurate information, organize and post videos of the pro-Ukrainian protests that demonstrated the real opposition to Russia’s invasion. While the Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project suggests that the Ukrainian was targeted by the Russians because he organized protests against their occupation, Tsyhipa’s Ukrainian patriotism and courage were already enough to make him an obvious target.
Tsyhipa disappeared on 12 March 2022 while delivering medication to his mother-in-law. It was only 8 days later, after fellow journalist Oleh Baturin was released from Russian captivity, that it became clear that Tsyhipa had been seized by the Russians and was being subjected to Russia’s torture methods of ‘interrogation’.
In the second half of April 2022, the Russians posted a video which Tsyhipa had clearly been tortured into taking part in. He was heard saying that he had been in Russia for several weeks, without mentioning that he had been taken there by force, and referring to Russia’s war of aggression by the Kremlin’s euphemistic term ‘special military operation’. He also repeated Russia’s lies, such as that the horrific atrocities discovered at Bucha and other occupied parts of Kyiv oblast had been ‘provocation’ staged in order to blame Russia and get it expelled from the UN Security Council. All former POWs, civilian hostages and political prisoners have confirmed that such ‘confessions’ are extracted through horrific forms of torture. The person is typically forced to learn such ‘confessions’ off by heart, and faces further torture, such as electric shocks passed through the body from wires attached to genitals, earlobes or fingertips.
Olena Tsyhipa has learned from former hostages who were briefly held with her husband that the Russians also threated to come for her and other members of the family and subject them to the same torture.
It was only eight months later, in November 2022, that Russia confirmed that it was holding Tsyhipa. The formal charge of ‘spying’ under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code was laid in December 2022. Olena reported then that the Russians were claiming that Tsyhipa had ‘voluntarily’ turned up in occupied Crimea (where he had been imprisoned since at least October that year) to ‘confess’.
The ‘case was passed to the occupation ‘Crimean high court’ on 13 July 2023, with all five (possibly six) ‘hearings’ held behind closed doors.
Russia’s application of its legislation and its forced deportation to Russia of Ukrainian citizens are already in flagrant violation of international law. In Serhiy Tsyhipa’s case, the accusation of ‘spying’ and the specific charges are simply grotesque. The aggressor state claimed that Tsyhipa had ‘spied for Ukraine’ by reporting on the Russian army’s invasion of his country and on their illegal deployment of forces and movements around Kherson oblast. In a recent interview, Olena Tsyhipa confirmed that, yes, her husband certainly had shared information on Facebook about what was happening, about how much military hardware had gone past, etc. But he was in his own home, his own native Ukraine, she stresses, unlike the invaders who seize patriots and claim that they are ‘spies’ for their own country.
On 6 October 2023, the occupation ‘Crimean high court’, under presiding ‘judge’ Victor Sklyarov, sentenced Serhiy Tsyhipa to 13 years in a harsh-regime prison colony.
This was upheld on 13 February 2024 by Russia’s Third court of appeal, under presiding ‘judge’ Yelena Kaporina
These so-called ‘trials’ took place behind closed doors
Russia has a lot to hide. Please ensure that they do not succeed by helping to publicize information about Russia’s abduction, torture and ongoing imprisonment of Serhiy Tsyhipa so that pressure is put on Russia to release him and other civilian hostages.
Please also write to Serhiy!
Letters need to be in Russian, handwritten and on ‘innocuous’ subjects. If it is not possible to write in Russian, you could send a photo or picture with the following lines.
Привет,
Желаю Вам крепкого здоровья и надеюсь, Вы скоро вернетесь домой, к своим родным. Простите, что мало пишу – мне трудно писать по-русски, но мы все о Вас помним.
[Hi. I wish you good health and hope that you will soon be home, with your family. I’m sorry that this letter is short – it’s hard for me to write in Russian., but you are not forgotten. ]
Address (in Russian or English)
391846, Рязанская область, г. Скопин, Октябрьский мкр, ул. Заводская, д. 1, ФКУ ИК-3
Цыгипе Сергею Витальевичу, 1961 г. р.
[or in English
391846 Russian Federation, Ryazan oblast, Skopin, 1 Zavodskaya St., Prison colony No. 3
Tsyhipa, Sergei Vitalievich, b. 1961 ]
