A surreal ‘trial’ is coming to an end at Russia’s notorious Southern District Military Court in Rostov, with the prosecution demanding a 20-year sentence against 65-year-old Valentyna Zayarna, a teacher of English from occupied Donetsk oblast. A long sentence is tragically certain, although, even if an act of sabotage was planned, there is nothing to suggest that Zayarna knew anything about it.
Zayarna is one of two people officially on trial, but the only one who can be imprisoned, with Denys Storozhuk safely back in Ukraine. Although the prosecution has opted for very serious ‘terrorism’ charges, Zayarna was simply caught collecting a parcel for Storozhuk, with the FSB claiming that this contained not only a fake passport, but components for an explosive device. She asserts that she had no idea what the parcel she had been asked to collect contained, with this confirmed by Storozhuk himself.
Russia has brought two serious ‘terrorism’ charges: Article 205 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code (a terrorist attack) and Article 205.4 § 2, with these carrying massive sentences. After taking Zayarna, then 62, prisoner, the FSB used electric shocks, beating, and threats to extract a supposed ‘confession’ to having worked for Ukraine’s Military Intelligence. This would appear to be what the aggressor state is claiming constitutes ‘a terrorist organization’. In fact, only the third charge seems remotely linked to Zayarna’s actions and that needed to be changed from ‘storing explosives’ to ‘an attempt to store’ these (under Article 222 § 4). The prosecutor claims that the requalification is because the parcel, by the time Zayarna came to collect it, contained a dummy, and not actual components. While the situation here is somewhat different given that Storozhuk is no longer in captivity, scepticism over the FSB’s alleged ‘discoveries’ is always warranted, with a number of Ukrainians sentenced to long terms of imprisonment on evidently planted ‘evidence’.
Mediazona earlier reported that Zayarna is from Amvrosiivka, a town in Donetsk oblast which has been occupied and part of Russia’s proxy ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [‘DPR’] since 2014. Although she had known Storozhuk since 2018 and has even said that she saw him as a second son, she knew him as ‘Dima’, and believed that he had left the Ukrainian Border Guard Service back in 2021. In fact, Storozhuk was a lieutenant colonel in the Border Guard Service and, until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had been in charge of a unit carrying out intelligence work and vetting on the border with occupied Donetsk oblast (the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’).
Storozhuk was at the Azovstal Steelworks in Mariupol in May 2022 when Ukraine’s military command ordered the last Ukrainian defenders, who were heavily outnumbered, to surrender. Storozhuk refused to do so and managed to hide away in underground tunnels of the sewage system, before escaping in a makeshift raft. He had to land on occupied territory, where he was clearly in grave danger, and at that point rang Valentyna Zayarnaya. He has since explained that he told her that he had remained in Mariupol, as a civilian, and that his home had burned down.
Zayarna immediately came for Storozhuk and brought him to her home in Amvrosiivka where he lived until March 2023. Zayarna was seized by Russian FSB officers on 25 March 2023 when she arrived in Donetsk to pick up a parcel for Storozhuk. This contained a passport to get Storozhuk out of occupied territory, shoes, etc, and also, purportedly, components for an explosive device. Zayarna was very violently detained and taken away for ‘interrogation’, before being taken back to her apartment where the FSB lay in wait to seize Storozhuk. Zayarna’s son, Kostiantyn (who was also clearly on good terms with Storozhuk) says that the men threatened to use their weapons against his mother and tortured her electric currents. They also plundered the place, taking all her savings ($5,300). Valentyna has said that she signed her supposed ‘confession’ under such duress, and that she tried to kill herself. She has consistently denied any knowledge of the (alleged) components for an explosive device in the parcel.
Storozhuk was seized on 6 April 2023 and was tortured with electric currents; asphyxiated and beaten. He admitted only to keeping explosives.
As in very many such cases, FSB torture was used to produce Russian state propaganda, with NTV coming up with a scurrilous video entitled ‘Zelenskyy’s sex spy’ in September 2023, This asserted that Storozhuk had been planning terrorist attacks in occupied Donetsk oblast and, among other things, implied that he had been in a sexual relationship with Valentyna Zayarna. Both Ukrainians were shown, giving the supposed ‘testimony’ tortured out of them.
The prosecution claims that, once on occupied territory, Storozhuk contacted a Military Intelligence officer and carried out tasks for him – observing the movements of Russians “to help missiles hit the right place”. They assert that Storozhuk was planning to blow up the car of a so-called ‘DPR deputy. This would count as an aggravating circumstance, however it was excluded, after the prosecution was forced to admit there was no evidence to back their initial claim. Storozhuk himself said that the explosives would have been used against a military site or oil depot. Mediazona, which is virtually the only source of information about Russian court cases, notes that Zayarna has, in court, expressed scepticism about the ‘testimony’ which Storozhuk gave. She doubts that he went out at nights, as claimed, to observe Russian military movements, saying that her dog would have raised a din each time, and clearly never did. She suggested that “Dima is prone to exaggeration, and likes to boast like any man”, and prove what a hero he is.
Denys Storozhuk was freed as part of a prisoner exchange on 13 September 2024. Valentyna Zayarna has been in Russian captivity for over two and a half years, with Russia clearly wanting to make somebody pay for Ukrainian resistance. The ‘trial’ began in April 2024 before Ilya Nikolaevich Bezgub, a ‘judge’ from the Southern District Military Court who has already passed several long sentences against Ukrainian political prisoners. As well as a 20-year sentence in a medium-security prison colony, the prosecutor on 11 December demanded a massive 500 thousand rouble fine against Zayarna. He asked for 22 years’ maximum-security imprisonment against Storozhuk, with the first five years in a prison, the harshest of Russia’s penal institutions and a 700 thousand rouble fine. Russia has ‘tried’ many Ukrainians in absentia and has on several occasions separated the proceedings out against Crimean Tatars or other Ukrainians whom they were unable to find, before staging show trials of the others. In this case, Storozhuk was present at the very beginning of the ‘trial’ but has been ‘tried’ in absentia for well over a year, together with Zayarna’. Perhaps this is merely because he was there at the outset, however his apparent ‘presence’ probably also helps to conceal the gaping gap where a substantiated indictment should be in Russia’s trial of 65-year-old Valentyna Zayarna.
