Russia is holding Victor Bondarenko (b. 26 June 1973) in its notorious Vladimir Central prison and denying him critically needed healthcare for several serious conditions. The 53-year-old pastor of an Evangelical church and volunteer is one of at least two Ukrainian clergy (together with Father Kostiantyn Maksymov) whom the Russian invaders abducted and sentenced to huge terms of imprisonment on grotesque charges that withstand no scrutiny.
Bondarenko had worked as a volunteer since 2014, helping to evacuate people territory too close to the frontline. He continued to do so in 2022, but under very different circumstances as Russia seized control of Bondarenko’s native Berdiansk during the first days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Helping people evacuate from besieged Mariupol meant that he was putting his life in danger every day. He also faced another form of danger from the invaders both because of such volunteer activities and his unconcealed pro-Ukrainian position.
Bondarenko was first abducted, together with his two sons-in-law, on 10 April 2022. They were subjected to torture, but were eventually released, after nearly two weeks.
Bondarenko’s daughter Maria Sizonova recently took part in a Crimean Tatar Resource Centre press conference about Russian human rights violations on occupied territory. She stressed that her father had risked his life in helping people and had not been stopped by his first abduction and the pressure placed him on.
He was clearly known to the Russian invaders and would have been under at least some degree of surveillance, with this making the details about his second ‘arrest’ particularly implausible.
He was seized again, this time alone, on 7 May 2024, with nothing known of his whereabouts for the first 22 days. On 29 May 2022, the Telegram channel ASTRA said that Bondarenko, whom it called merely a “local resident”, had been arrested in occupied Melitopol, and that he was accused of blowing up a sewage pumping station, with it later claimed that he had also blown up three electricity pylons. In fact, he was abducted from near his home in Berdiansk while taking the dog for a walk.
Then, on 20 September 2024, the Russian state-controlled news agency TASS called Bondarenko a “saboteur”, claiming, with customary contempt for the presumption of innocence, that he had “blown up an electrical substation in Berdiansk”. This was allegedly after he had gathered information for Ukraine’s Security Service. The so-called ‘investigators’ claimed that Bondarenko had, in 2022, joined “a sabotage group” and had, on 13 December 2022, blown up a transformer substation and three electricity pylons in Berdiansk, with this leading to a power outage in one part of the city, with 10 thousand people left without power.
Bondarenko was charged with ‘carrying out sabotage as part of an organized group (Article 281 of Russia’s criminal code; taking part in a sabotage group (Article 281.3) and illegal preparation of explosive devices (Article 223.1).
In reporting the charges, the Berdiansk Hromada Telegram channel wrote that the loss of power to 10 thousand residents back in December 2022 had, in fact, been due to bad weather. They noted that “the occupiers particularly aim activists, volunteers and other citizens who support Ukraine. Accusations of sabotage and terrorism are often used as an instrument of repression, even where there are no real grounds”
While Russia has been deliberately bombing Ukrainian power stations, other energy infrastructure, etc. to cause maximum suffering to the civilian population, there is no evidence that Ukrainian partisans (or the Ukrainian Armed Forces) have, on occupied territory, targeted anything but legitimate Russian military sites and personnel, and collaborators installed in leadership roles by the invaders).
Had there been any grounds for the suspiciously fluid charges against Bondarenko, it is hard to imagine that it would have taken the Russians a year and a half to abduct him and to then take another four months to announce charges against him. He had been held incommunicado all this time, almost certainly had no lawyer, with such periods of total isolation typically used to extract ‘confessions’ through torture. That is very likely to be how the video was produced in which Bondarenko is shown pointing at a wall of some structure and ‘admitting’ to having placed three Molotov cocktails there.
On 30 December 2024, Victor Bondarenko was sentenced to 22 years’ maximum-security imprisonment, with this monstrous sentence for a non-existent act of sabotage upheld on 17 April 2025 by a court of appeal. While there is too little information for the Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project to declare Bondarenko a political prisoner, it has added him to its list of people whose prosecution is very likely politically motivated.
According to Maria Sizonova, her father’s state of health is of real concern. Even before he was taken prisoner and exposed to the appalling conditions of Russian and occupation penal institutions, he suffered from several chronic conditions and had also undergone chemotherapy. He needs proper treatment, diet, etc. for hepatitis C, nine hernias, as well as high blood pressure, and is receiving nothing. Each day, Maria stresses, is placing her father’s life in jeopardy.
