Russia’s brutality truly knows no bounds. Not only has it sentenced a young mother, with two small children, to 12 years’ imprisonment, but it has illegally sent her to a prison colony in the Chuvash republic, some 2,200 kilometres from the children and her home in Sevastopol. It is likely that similar savagery will be meted out against Oleksandra’s mother and the children’s grandmother. Victoria Strilets (b. 29.03.1983) was also sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment on the same, surreal ‘treason’ charges. Two Russian-controlled ‘courts’ ignored the fact that Victoria is suffering from multiple sclerosis and cannot possibly survive the appalling conditions of Russian captivity and lack of any decent healthcare. Over the past year, three other women with small children have been imprisoned on equally flawed charges and are now either appealing against or facing massive sentences which will mean that their children grow up not knowing their mothers.
Oleksandra Strilets is turning 26 on 28 June. She has two very small daughters, Solomiya, who was just five when her mother and grandmother were imprisoned and Lera, who had been born very premature, weighing 530 grams and with chronic lung disease (bronchopulmonary dysplasia). Lera was just four months old and in intensive care on 5 August 2025 when ‘judge’ Daniil Zemlyukov, from the occupation ‘Sevastopol city court’ found both Oleksandra and her mother ‘guilty of ‘treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code and sentenced both women to 12 years in a medium-security prison colony, to be followed by a year of restricted liberty.
Russia has massively escalated its use of ‘treason’ or ‘spying’ charges since 2022, with all of them ending in convictions and huge sentences after supposed ‘trials’ ehld entirely behind closed doors. The charges generally sound as though they have been copy-pasted from the same template.
This is largely true here also, however there were two differences. It was first reported on 3 October 2024 that both mother and daughter were charged under Article 275.1 of the same Russian criminal code (‘passing on information on a confidential basis.’) That had changed, however, to the more serious ‘treason’ charge by June 2025 when the ‘case’ against a woman with MS and her daughter whose new-born baby was critically ill in hospital.
The case was also different in that the two women were taken into custody after the sentence was announced, and not earlier which is generally the case.
There were two ‘hearings’ in total – the first, lasting four hours, on 22 June 2026; the second – five hours, with that including the reading out of the sentence. The prosecution claimed, and Zemlyukov chose to accept, that Oleksandra Strilets “had decided, for remuneration, to cooperate on a confidential basis with representatives of Ukraine against the security of the Russian Federation.” She had, purportedly, also got her mother involved in this and had, in September 2023 passed photographs, taken by her mother, of sites of the Russian armed forces to a Telegram channel controlled by Ukraine’s Military Intelligence.
On 21 January 2026, ‘judge’ Yelena Udod from the Third court of appeal of general jurisdiction, upheld the sentences. She could have at least deferred Oleksandra’s sentence until her younger daughter turned fourteen yet claimed to see no grounds, as the children “have a father”. As mentioned, neither Zemlyukov nor Udod saw any problem in depriving Victoria Strilets of the vital treatment which she needed every six months to prevent her multiple sclerosis from worsening and in dooming her to suffer the development of a cruel and debilitating disease in Russian captivity. (see below for address(es) to write to).
Niyara Ersmambetova (b. .10.1987) has two children, a son who is 16 and a 9-year-old daughter, whom she was bringing up alone. Neither this, nor her mother’s death and father’s disability, stopped the Russian FSB from abducting her in May 2025 and holding her incommunicado for six months. She too was accused of ‘treason’, with the prosecution claiming that she had collaborated with the ATESH resistance movement, and Natalia Kulinskaya from the occupation ‘Crimean high court’ sentencing her to 15 years’ imprisonment. This was only of several politically motivated sentences which Kulinskaya has passed over recent years.
The sentence was upheld on, or before 7 April 2026, by Russia’s third court of appeal in Sochi. Everything took place behind closed doors.
Sakha Manhubi (b. 28.01.2000) was bringing up two small children after her divorce. She was abducted and held incommunicado for 15 months in an FSB-controlled SIZO [remand prison] in occupied Simferopol before the FSB finally laid charges of ‘treason’. The FSB claimed on 8 April 2026 that they had “detained an agent of Ukraine’s Security Service” and even produced a video in which this supposedly 25-year-old ‘detainee’ was seen providing a ‘confession’ which corresponded to the FSB allegations. She is facing a similar sentence on the same ‘treason’ charges.
Esma Nimetulayeva (b. 9.01.1986), has five children whom she had been bringing up alone after her husband, Remzi Nimetulayev was arrested on flawed and politically motivated ‘terrorism’ charges in August 2023. She was arrested on identical charges on 15 October 2025, together with Elviza Alieva (b. 2005); Fevziye Osmanova (b. 2004); and Nasiba Saidova (b. 2006). This was a last tragic red line that Russia crossed, with their arrests the first time that it had targeted women in its conveyor-belt ‘terrorism’ trials against Crimean Muslims. These have received international condemnation and all victims are recognized political prisoners.
Please write to Oleksandra Strilets! The letters tell her, and Moscow that she is not forgotten. Letters need to be in Russian, on ‘safe subjects’ and handwritten. If this is a problem, try a program like ChatGPT (do try to avoid idioms, etc. that can easily be mistranslated).
Address:
429430, Чувашская республика, г. Козловка, ул. Шоссейная, д. 10, ФКУ ИК-5 УФСИН России по Чувашской Республике – Чувашии,
Стрилец Александра Александровна, 2000 г. р.
Her mother’s address will be given here when it becomes known. At present the other political prisoners above are still in occupied Crimea.
