Russia rubberstamps 15-year ‘treason’ sentence against 58-year-old Crimean activist Oksana Senedzhuk
A Russian court of appeal has upheld the 15-year sentence against Oksana Senedzhuk passed by an illegal Crimean occupation ‘court’ on surreal treason charge. The ‘appeal hearing’ appears to have been as farcical as the 58-year-old Ukrainian’s ‘trial’, with Oksana writing to her daughter, Maria Kostiuk that the ‘judges’ seemed to have arrived with their ruling written in advance. This would not be the first time that appeal hearings took just minutes, with Russia’s near total blackout on information about its many ‘trials’ on treason and / or spying charges making scrutiny very difficult.
Senedzhuk has been imprisoned since the summer of 2024, although information about her seizure and the charges against her emerged only with news of her ‘trial’ and sentence on 26 December 2024. It was reported then that she had been convicted by ‘judge’ Igor Vladimirovich Kozhevnikov from the occupation ‘Sevastopol municipal court’ of ‘treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code and sentenced to 15 years in a medium-security prison colony. Kozhevnikov also imposed a fine of 200 thousand roubles, and a year’s restricted liberty after the term of imprisonment.
Russia’s customary secrecy over such ‘trials’ has not stopped the authoritative Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project from adding Senedzhuk to its list of likely political prisoners. Even without the fact that Russia is violating international law by applying its legislation on occupied territory, the scant details about the charges arouse serious scepticism.
Until Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea, Senedzhuk worked in the Sevastopol municipal administration. She is described by the Crimean Human Rights Group as a civic activist who actively supported and took part in the Euromaidan protests in late 2013 to early 2014. That alone would have made her an obvious target for the new Russian occupation regime, although, according to her family, it was after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that she began being persecuted for her openly pro-Ukrainian position and opposition to Russia’s aggression. She was interrogated on many occasions before the FSB carried out a search of her home and seized her on 14 August 2024.
The Russian FSB referred to Senedzhuk as a specialist at the ‘Sevastopol scientific research and planning institute of urban design, architecture, surveys and environment’, an institute created by the Russian occupiers.
It was asserted that Senedzhuk, as an employee of this institute, had observed and passed on information about the movements of boats from Russia’s Black Sea fleet and about its infrastructure to Ukraine. Ukraine has certainly succeeded in carrying out several damaging attacks against parts of this fleet, used in Russia’s war of aggression. Each such attack almost certainly results in the FSB abducting, interrogating and sometimes charging Ukrainians living in Crimea. The reaction is standard, but it remains quite unclear how Senedzhuk was supposed to have had information which Ukraine’s Military Intelligence could not obtain by other means.
The FSB further claimed that Senedzhuk had been under surveillance for several months before her ‘arrest’. She was accused of having been ‘recruited’ by an agent of Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU]. No evidence was provided as to why this person was alleged to be an SBU agent, with the only details given being that this supposed ‘agent’ had, from 2008 to 2014, worked at the Nakhimovsky District Administration, while Senedzhuk worked at the Sevastopol City Administration. He had left occupied Crimea in 2015, but had maintained contact with Senedzhuk. That contact was, presumably, deemed sufficient for the FSB to claim that Senedzhuk had, on his instructions, “carried out surveillance, taking photos and passed to Ukraine’s Intelligence information about the deployment of Russian Black fleet boats”.
Russia’s secrecy makes it impossible to accurately assess the charges, however the information available scarcely warrants the charges, which are, in addition, ominously similar to countless other politically motivated trials, especially on ‘treason’ and ‘spying’ charges, which have increased dramatically since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
See also:
Nina Tymoshenko Russia’s most savage sentence yet against 66-year-old Ukrainian woman from occupied Crimea
Vladyslav Afanasiev Crimean sentenced to 15 years for donation to rescue children from Russian-occupied territory
Lera Dzhemilova Russia concocts ‘treason’ charges eight months after abducting young Crimean woman
Ruslan Mambetov Crimean Tatar sentenced to 18 years in Russian secret ‘trial’ where only torture is near certain
Roman Hryhorian Ukrainian seized in Crimea and sentenced to 12 years for donations to Ukraine's defenders
Liudmyla Kolesnikova Russian FSB abduct Ukrainian from her mother’s funeral in occupied Crimea
Halyna Dovhopola Halyna Dovhopola turns 70, imprisoned in Russia for remaining true to Ukraine in occupied Crimea