Russia sentences 17-year-old lad from occupied Ukraine to 6.5 years on ‘treason’ charges

An illegal ‘court’ in the Russian proxy ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ has found a 17-year-old guilty of ‘state treason’ and sentenced him to six and a half years imprisonment.   The young boy’s age was presumably the reason that his name was not publicized, but did not stop the so-called ‘DPR high court’ from imposing a long sentence in a juvenile prison colony. 

The 17-year-old is from Dokuchaievsk in Donetsk oblast, a city which has been under occupation since 2014.  It is likely that the 17-year-old never had any other internal passport, than that issued by the Russian occupying power.  That does not, however, change the fact that an occupying state has no right to apply its legislation on occupied territory, with the charge of ‘treason with respect to Russia’ against a Ukrainian living on Ukrainian territory especially cynical. 

The sentence was reported on 4 April 2025, with no information as to whether there was more than one hearing.  It is, unfortunately, very unlikely that the lad had access to an independent lawyer.  It was claimed that he had, between October 2023 and March 2024, passed information to Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU] about the deployment of Russian forces, 

Russia has no right to be deploying its forces on Ukrainian territory, and any such activities by a Ukrainian of any age would be entirely legitimate, though obviously the aggressor state would not take that view.  In fact, there is every reason to be wary about the charges, with the indictment identical in all, but the period of time involved, to that used against countless other Ukrainians, including some abducted and held incommunicado for years prior to the so-called ‘trial’. 

Russia has not stopped at persecuting, abducting  or even killing, very young Ukrainians on occupied Ukrainian territory.  

Tihran Ohannisian and Mykyta Khanharov

The two 16-year-old lads from occupied Berdiansk (Zaporizhzhia oblast) were killed on 24 June 2024, on the eve of what should have been Mykyta’s 17th birthday.  There are very many reasons for doubting the Russian claim that the two boys were killed in a shootout with occupation ‘enforcement officials’, with suspicion only escalated by the Russians’ refusal to hand the boys’ bodies over for burial (more details here).

Bohdan Kovalchuk and other boys from occupied Yasynuvata

Bohdan was still 17 and the oldest of seven young boys from Yasynuvata in occupied Donetsk oblast [‘DPR’] whose supposed ‘arrest’ was announced by the so-called ‘DPR ministry of state security’ on 12 September 2016.  Only five young boys were later mentioned by name, with it claimed that they had been ‘recruited’ by Ukraine’s Security Service as ‘saboteurs’, to blow up civilian and military targets.  The story was substantiated only by supposed ‘confessions’ which were widely shown on militant and Russian television. 

In fact, the lads had been seized at the end of August 2016 as they tried to leave occupied Yasynovata.  In Bohdan’s case, he was hoping to get to his grandmother, Tetiana Hots,  on government-controlled territory and study to be a car mechanic.  

The abduction of children elicited international protest and there were initially promises that the lads would be freed.  Instead, however, a ‘DPR’ kangaroo court ‘sentenced’ five of them to terms of imprisonment from 10 to 15 years.  Some of the young lads were released in December 2019, with it reported that they had all been offered a ‘pardon’, on condition that they ‘repented’ and agreed to remain on occupied territory.

Two of the lads remained imprisoned: Bohdan Kovalchuk and Vladyslav Pazuskho.  Chillingly little is known about Vladyslav, who was 17 when seized in 2016.  We know from his grandmother that Bohdan refused a pardon and remained in prison, hoping to be included in an exchange of prisoners and return to free Ukraine. 

In April 2020, Tetiana Hots told Donbas Realities that Bohdan is her only grandson whom she and her daughter raised together. “You ask me how it came about that all the lads agreed to the ‘pardon’, yet Bohdan refused. What should I say?.  He has always been steadfast and always like that. I remember how he said to me: “Babushka, please understand, if you betray once, you’ll do it again.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, only a very small number of Ukrainian hostages abducted before 2022 have been released in exchanges of prisoners.  Bohdan Kovalchuk remains imprisoned and urgently needs publicity to ensure that he is included in the next exchange.