Crimean abducted by Russian FSB after returning to see her dying mother sentenced to 17 years for a donation

A Crimean occupation ‘court’ has sentenced 35-year-old Liudmyla Kolesnikova to 17 years’ imprisonment because of a donation of 25 euros which she made to help buy drones after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  After abducting the Ukrainian immediately after her mother’s funeral and holding her incommunicado, without any formal status, for several months, Russia’s FSB came up with a charge of ‘state treason’ over the donation.

Russia’s ‘trial’ of Liudmyla Kolesnikova would, under any circumstances, be in violation of international law which prohibits the aggressor state from applying its legislation on occupied territory.  The case is, however, even more cynical firstly, because Russia has made it impossible to live on occupied territory without a Russian passport and then uses such foisted citizenship as excuse for bringing charges of ‘treason’ in supporting Ukraine. It is also deeply shocking because of the specific reason why Liudymyla returned to Crimea on 1 June 2024.  She had moved to Ireland shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and only returned because her mother was dying of cancer.

As reported, it was only at the beginning of October 2024, over two months after she was abducted by the FSB from the cemetery, that Liudmyla Kolesnikova (b. 1.03.1990) was formally remanded in custody on the ‘treason’ charge, Her plight only really became known when a volunteer published a letter from her on 24 October 2024.  In it, she explained that she had been living in Ireland since 2022.  Although she earlier studied law, in Ireland she was retraining as a cosmetologist.  She had arrived in Yalta in June 2024 to attend her mother’s funeral and had been taken prisoner, she wrote, at the cemetery. 

Mediazona later spoke with Liudmyla’s sister, Yana and some acquaintances, with the story proving to be slightly more complicated, but still bearing all the hallmarks of an enforced disappearance and not an ‘arrest’. The two sisters had come to Yalta to bid farewell to their mother.  Yana had been living in Kyiv since 2017, Liudmyla had only left Crimea after Russia’s full-scale invasion.  It seems that she had, briefly worked for the Ukrainian police, and then, after Russia’s invasion, for the occupation ‘police’, before changing profession and working in a private law firm.  According to friends, she was not then interested in ‘politics’.  Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a jolt, which prompted her, not only to make the above-mentioned donation to Ukraine’s Armed Forces, but to move to Ireland.  There she apparently posted selfies on Instagram with a badge showing the Ukrainian and Irish flags together.  Mediazona notes that her Instagram page was subscribed to by former colleagues from the occupation ‘police’. 

The above would have doubtless been sufficient pretext for Russia’s FSB to target the young Ukrainian, with the fact that she had had no choice but to take Russian citizenship, then used as justification for the especially monstrous ‘treason’ charges.  It is, in fact, likely that one of the people subscribed to her Instagram page ‘denounced’ her, probably out of jealousy that she had managed to leave and begin a new life in Ireland.  Judging by her sister’s account, it is likely that Liudmyla had understood the danger, but had no choice as the funeral was delayed by the need to obtain permission for her mother’s burial in a family vault.

On 27 June 2024, just days after the funeral, occupation ‘enforcement officers’ turned up at the apartment, carried out a search and took Liudmyla away,  They initially concocted an absurd administrative charge, getting her jailed for supposed ‘hooliganism’ [using foul language in a public place] for 12 days. This is a standard ploy which the FSB have used on numerous occasions while concocting criminal charges.

The only difference here was that Liudmyla was, briefly, released, but without any documents and was under effective house arrest.  They were together for around a week under such circumstances, and then Yana had to return to Kyiv. 

All contact was lost with Liudmyla at the end of July 2024.  It is possible that she was, indeed, seized at the cemetery, and wrote in her letter that she had been held since that seizure without any spare clothes, items of hygiene, etc. Her captors even refused to let her go to the apartment and let the cat outside, leaving him, she feared, to starve to death. In fact, Yana later reported that the cat had survived by managed to scratch open packets of the children’s food that the sisters had bought for their money in her last weeks.

Liudmyla wrote in her first letter that the ’treason’ charge, under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code, was based on an effective donation in 2022, when Kolesnikova bought two NFT ‘Russian warship’ stamps for 25 euros, with the money collected used to buy drones.  She wrote that the only evidence was a printout from the Revolut Internet bank.  According to Mediazona, there were no such stamps, however Ukraine’s postal service had warned people against crooks, pretending to be selling such stamps.  More important, it seems it seems likely that the FSB only learned of this donation after they seized her and her telephone. 

Russia has been concocting such ‘trials’ and sentences on all occupied territory for the last year or so, however the 17-year sentence, passed by ‘judge’ Sergei Nikolaevich Pogrebniak from the occupation ‘Crimean high court’, is probably the harshest to date.  Liudmyla’s sister was, seemingly, able to find her a lawyer, however these are political ‘trials’ held, behind closed doors, before kangaroo courts.   with convictions and long sentences effectively guaranteed.