Yulia Sokolova was seized by the Russian invaders of her native Skadovsk (Kherson oblast) shortly after her 17th birthday. She is now still only 19 and serving a nine-year sentence on ‘spying’ and ‘treason’ charges that are both illegal and highly implausible. Her grandmother is convinced that Russia is making Yulia ‘pay’ for her patriotism, for her pro-Ukrainian views that she openly expressed.
Russia has made it all but impossible for any Ukrainians on occupied territory to refuse its citizenship, with young students like Yulia Sokolova, who was hoping to become a doctor, given no choice but to take a Russian passport. Yulia did not conceal her pro-Ukrainian position and expressed her views openly on social media, and among her peers. Her grandmother, Tetitana, reportedly told a reporter from Paris Match that at her granddaughter’s age, «you don’t understand what you can say, and to whom».
In July 2023, around 10 masked men burst into the family’s apartment, turned the place upside down, grabbed Yulia’s computer and took her way, with a bag over her head. She was released after several hours of interrogation, but reportedly under total house arrest. It seems possible, in fact, that this was not based on a formal procedural ruling, albeit by an illegitimate occupation ‘court’. Tetiana recounts that the same individuals turned up every day, taking her granddaughter away and hold her for many hours. She says that Yulia returned each time, more and more crushed, but “never told us what they did to her”.
She was seemingly taken into full detention on 7 January 2024, however her family knew nothing about her whereabouts for over a month. On 14 February, they learned that Yulia (who was still only 17) had been taken to SIZO No. 2, one of two remand prisons which Russia opened in occupied Crimea soon after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. SIZO No. 2 is believed to be under FSB control and used for holding political prisoners and civilians abducted from newly occupied territory, against whom the FSB are concocting charges. She was held there incommunicado and in solitary confinement.
Ten months later, Yulia was transferred to the only marginally less notorious SIZO that the Russian invaders set up in occupied Chonhar. She was, at least, able to write to her family, with her letters speaking of her being ill and shattered.
There are disturbing gaps pr discrepancies in the information available, with it unclear even when the sentence was passed. It may have been as early as 13 March 2025, although the occupation ‘prosecutor’ reported it on 7 April and the occupation ‘Kherson regional court’ responsible for the 9-year sentence in a medium-security prison colony only reporting it on 9 April.
She was convicted of both ‘spying’ under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code and of ‘treason’ (Article 275). Both changes were presumably used to allow for the period before Yulia had received Russian citizenship, since it is only those with such citizenship who are charged with ‘treason’.
The claim was that, from January through July 2023, Yulia had, “on the instructions of individuals acting in the interests of a foreign intelligence service” taken pictures on her mobile phone of sites used by the Russian armed forces and occupation ‘authorities’. She allegedly sent information about the number of Russian military, their deployment, weapons and military technology to the anonymous individual claimed to have commissioned them via a messenger app and email. “As a result, the information containing a state secret that she passed on could have been used to strike at the positions of Russian military” and occupation authorities.
There has been a massive escalation in the number of ‘spying ‘trials’ under Article 276 or ‘treason trials’, under Article 275. The only difference tends to be in whether the person has Russian citizenship or not, with that determining the specific charge. The impugned ‘spying’ differs very little from one ‘trial’ to the next. The Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project recently noted when declaring Ihor Bunin, the victim of one such ‘treason trial’, a political prisoner, that in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Russian military sites on occupied territory are totally legitimate targets, and that providing exact information could minimize civilian casualties. The same is surely true here.
There are, however, equally legitimate grounds for doubting that the charges in Yulia Sokolova’s case have any basis in fact. It seems extremely unlikely that a 17-year-old would have had access to the information allegedly passed on and that a young student who was already in evident danger because of her openly expressed pro-Ukrainian views would have been subjected to even greater danger.
The claim by the occupation ‘court’ that Yulia Sokolova “fully admitted guilt” also warrants scepticism, and concern as it is likely that, during all those months where a teenager was held incommunicado that she was placed under physical and / or psychological duress
Please help to publicize this shocking case, and, if you can, write to Yulia. The letters tell her and Moscow that she is not forgotten. They do, unfortunately, need to be in Russian, and on ‘safe’ subjects.
Российская Федерация 412900, Саратовская область, г. Вольск, п. Видим, д. 12, ФКУ ИК-5 УФСИН России по Саратовской области,
Соколова Юлия Олеговна, 2006 г. р.
