Tetiana Deviatkina was almost 46 when the Russians invaded her native Berdiansk in Zaporizhzhia oblast, and began systematically trying to eradicate Ukrainian identity, including by abducting, torturing and imprisoning those unwilling to renounce it. Tetiana will be turning 50 in Russian captivity on 28 April 2026 with Russia now increasingly using its flawed legislation and compliant courts to pass sentences of six years or more against Ukrainians, like her, for opposing Russian occupation.
Although Russia did not conceal Deviatkina’s name as it often does its victims, we are not told the exact contents of the four social media posts which were deemed to constitute “calls to extremism and terrorism” and to warrant imprisoning a woman with an underage daughter and elderly mother to care for. She has, reportedly, been in captivity since 16 September 2025. The indictment was passed to Russia’s Southern District Military Court on 27 October 2025, with Deviatkina added to Russia’s notorious ‘list of extremists and terrorists’ on 3 December 2025.
In announcing sentence just four months later, the court’s press service said that Deviatkina had been found guilty of ‘public calls to terrorism; justification or propaganda of terrorism via the Internet’ under Article 205.2 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code, and ‘public calls to carry out extremist activities via the Internet’ (Article 280 § 2).
She was accused, specifically, of having, on 30 January; 23 February; and 3 March 2023 posted texts “in which she expressed incitement to carry out activities linked with violence (homicide; causing injury or damage to a group of individuals linked through bellowing to the nationality ‘Russians’”. She was also claimed to have, on 9 August 2024, “posted a comment, giving a positive assessment of terrorist activities.”
Without knowing exactly what Deviatkina wrote, this would not be the first time that the Russian prosecution has treated clear expressions of opposition to the Russians who invaded and are occupying parts of Ukraine as directed at ‘Russians, as a nationality.’
Russia has used its supreme court and the same Southern District Military Court to label units of Ukraine’s Armed Forces ‘terrorist organizations’ , with those rulings then used as pretexts for the most surreal ‘terrorism’ charges. It seems very likely that Deviatkina’s “positive assessment of terrorist activities’ refers to recognition of the role played, for example, by Ukrainian defenders from the Azov, Aidar, Donbas or 48th Separate Assault Battalion named after Noman Çelebicihan.
It is also simply insane to pass long sentences over four social media posts, as well as being illegal for an occupying power to prosecute a Ukrainian under Russian legislation. Nonetheless, on 7 April 2026, ‘judge’ Vitaly Victorovich Mamedov sentenced Deviatkina to six years’ imprisonment in a medium-security prison colony.
Even less is known about Victor Voloshchuk, a 55-year-old from the village of Mala Bilozerka in Zaporizhzhia oblast. He was sentenced to five and a half years’ imprisonment by the same Southern District Military Court also over posts on Telegram. Voloshchuk was also accused of ‘public calls to terrorism; justification or propaganda of terrorism via the Internet’ under Article 205.2 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code, It was claimed that he had posted comments “with calls to join one of the Ukrainian nationalist formations in order to eliminate soldiers of the Russian armed forces.” This is the term standardly used by the aggressor state to refer to units of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, such as the Azov Regiment.
In short, Victor Voloshchuk, a Ukrainian, living in his own country, was claimed to be ‘inciting terrorism’ by approving armed resistance against the Russian invading and occupying power.
See also:
