All of Russia’s abductions and fabricated trials of Ukrainian civilians from occupied territory are shocking. It does, however, take a specific form of brutality to first savagely torture the mother of a Ukrainian soldier, and then sentence her to 13 years on surreal ‘spying’ charges because of her correspondence with her son. Information remains limited, yet sufficient for the authoritative Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project to have, on 14 April 2026, recognized Olha Cherniavska as a political prisoner and demanded her release.
Olha Cherniavska (b. 13 May 1980) worked as a shop manager before Russia invaded her home in Tokmak (Zaporizhzhia oblast), while her son was already serving in Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Her son alone placed Olha among the many groups of Ukrainians ‘at risk’ and most likely to be targeted under Russian occupation.
She was abducted on 25 May 2023 and held incommunicado, without any charges or procedural status, for over a year. It is known from fellow political prisoner Yulia Kovieshnikova that during that time, she was subjected to horrific torture, with her body covered in bruises and burns. Her family had approached all Russian bodies in their attempt to find Olha, with no success.
It was only on 15 August 2024 that charges were formally laid, under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code (‘spying’). This has been the ‘default’ charge, used many times against Ukrainians first abducted and held incommunicado for months or longer. It was claimed that Cherniavska had, from February to December 2022, gathered information about the geolocation of Russian forces in occupied Tokmak and had passed this on, via a messenger app, to her son who was serving in Ukraine’s Armed Forces. These charges, which seem copy-pasted from one ‘trial’ to the next, were then followed by the standard refrain that this information could have been used to carry out strikes on these places of deployment.
Even if we leave aside the fact that Russia is in violation of international law through its application of its legislation against Ukrainian citizens on Ukrainian territory, the charges bear no scrutiny. Cherniavska’s captors would have seized her telephone immediately. Had there been anything ‘incriminating’ in her letters to her son, there would have been no need to hold her incommunicado and without any legal status for almost 15 months. Such lack of official status means that her captors were able to prevent Olha Cherniavska having access to a lawyer and, as we know from another political prisoner, to subject her to torture. Memorial has stressed that no ‘testimony’ obtained through such illegal means can have any legal validity.
There is, in fact, nothing to suggest that there was any ‘trial’ worthy of such a name. Cherniavska was sentenced on 12 December 2024 by ‘judge’ Vladimir Mikhailovych Polukhin from the occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’ to 13 years’ medium-security imprisonment. The sentencing was carried out in occupied Simferopol, with the prosecution represented by the occupation ‘deputy head of the Crimean prosecutor’ Pavel Anatolievich Kucheryavenko.
The sentence was upheld on 6 May 2025 by ‘judge’ Sergei Viacheslavovych Babkov from the Russian First court of appeal. He did, however, agree that the sentence should be counted from when she was first held prisoner.
This is not the only time that the Russian invaders have fabricated charges linked with sons in Ukraine’s Armed Forces. In April 2025, Svitlana Dovhopola from Enerhodar (Zaporizhzhia oblast) was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment for a small donation to the unit in which her son was serving. The Russians, having made it near impossible to live on occupied territory without Russian citizenship, claimed that such a donation to her son and other defenders of Ukraine constituted ‘treason’.
Please write to Olha Cherniavska!
All letters are an important lifeline and tell Moscow that its treatment of her is noticed. Letters need to be in Russian, unfortunately, handwritten and on ‘safe’ subjects. If that is a problem, you could use the Chat GPT program or similar
Address:
109383 РФ, г. Москва, ул. Шоссейная, д. 92, ФКУ СИЗО-6 ГУФСИН России по г. Москве, Чернявская Ольга Викторовна, 1980 г. р.
