A Russian court has sentenced 25-year-old Angelina Skyba to 13 years’ imprisonment for several modest donations to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The sentence was passed almost exactly two years after Angelina’s husband, Mykola Skyba died in Russian captivity. He was just 28 and had been imprisoned in horrific conditions and almost certainly tortured for his role in defending Mariupol to the end in 2022.
Angelina Skyba (b. 14.07.2000) was accused of having made six money transfers in hryvnia to help Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and specifically the Azov Regiment. The donations altogether amounted to around 80 euros and are reported to have been while she was “on Ukrainian territory in 2024 and 2025”. Since this is presumably copied from the indictment and since the money was in Ukrainian currency, it is likely that she was on government-controlled Ukrainian territory when she made them. There is no information about how Angelina came to be on occupied or Russian territory, but if she was forced to cross into Russia in order to then return to occupied Mariupol, where her family clearly lives, it is possible that the donations were discovered when border guards checked her telephone. Mediazona reports that she was detained on 10 August 2025 by the FSB in Pskov oblast, where there are border crossings with Latvia and with Estonia.
The young woman is originally from Horlivka (near Donetsk) but studied at the Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. She was in Mariupol during the Russian invasion and siege, as well, seemingly, as afterwards. Russia has made it impossible to live on occupied territory without taking Russian citizenship. Although this was used to justify the charge of ‘treason’ and huge sentence, such citizenship cannot, in any way, be viewed as a matter of choice. Russia is violating international law both by foisting its citizenship on people in occupied territory, as well as by then using its legislation to bring cynical charges against them.
Angelina was originally remanded in custody on a charge of ‘financing terrorism’, under Article 205.1 § 1.1. This charge is based solely on a politically motivated ruling by Russia’s supreme court which, on 2 August 2022, outlawed the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ ‘Azov Regiment”, claiming it to be a ‘terrorist organization’. Russia has, as feared, used the ruling as an excuse for passing sentences against Ukrainian prisoners of war of from 20 years to life imprisonment, while also claiming that support for Ukraine’s Armed Forces constitutes ‘financing of terrorism’.
A second charge of ‘state treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code because of the Russian citizenship that Russia makes it impossible to not have on occupied territory, was added in November 2025.
In demanding an even longer sentence (17 years and a 500 thousand rouble fine), the prosecutor noted that Mykola Skyba had served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and “took part in military action against the Russian Federation,”. Angelina Skyba, he said, must therefore have understood that “the activities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are directed against the Russian Federation.”
Angelina doubtless also understood what both the prosecutor and ‘judge’ Konstantin Gennadievich Yershov from Russia’s First Western District Military Court chose to ignore. The actions of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, including the regiment in which Mykola Skyba was serving, were against an aggressor state which had invaded Ukrainian territory.
During the ‘court debate’, Angelina’s lawyer argued that there was no proof that her actions had caused any harm, and asked the court to bear in mind that Angelina and her family, while in Mariupol, had spent a considerable amount of time in a bomb shelter and had later helped provide humanitarian aid to other residents of Mariupol.
Angelina was so distressed when she heard the sentence demanded that she was unable to take part. During her final address, she asked the court only to “take into account all of the things I have been through and pass the minimum possible sentence”.
There had been very few hearings before the verdict was announced on 4 March 2026. Convictions in all such manifestly flawed ‘trials’ are, unfortunately, guaranteed, with Konstantin Yershov sentencing the young widow to 13 years in a medium-security prison colony. The sentence is still subject to appeal.
All details about the trial had been concealed, at the prosecutor’s request, until the concluding stages.
Mykola Skyba died in a SIZO [remand prison] in Russia’s Volgograd oblast. This was supposedly of pleuropneumonia (inflammation of the lungs and pleura) and cachexia (a pathological wasting syndrome, with rapid loss of weight, muscle and fat). He had been a prisoner of war since May 2022 and, like all Ukrainian POWs, but especially those, like Mykola, who defended Mariupol and the Azovstal Steel Works, doubtless received almost no food, no medical treatment, and would have almost certainly been subjected to constant torture.
