In the last week alone, Russian-controlled ‘courts’ have passed massive sentences from 13-17 years against at least four Ukrainians from occupied territory and is placing in jeopardy the life of a young mother earlier abducted and then sentenced to 15 years on identical ‘treason’ charges.
The sentences seldom ‘make the headlines’, and not only because of Russia’s information blockade and the fact that all such ‘trials’ are held behind closed doors. In most cases, a person is abducted, disappears and is next heard of a year or more later when the occupation ‘prosecutor’ either announces that a ‘trial’ is about to begin or that a sentence has been passed. Sometimes, even the person’s name remains unknown. Men and women, some of them in their seventies, are imprisoned on shocking ‘treason’ charges for having donated small amounts to money to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. In other cases, the alleged ‘treason’ is claimed to have been via ‘spying’ with 15-year sentences having been passed because of a photo, sometimes one widely available on the Internet, found when a person’s phone was checked.
Information may be scant, but publicity is vital if Ukraine is to be able to secure its citizens’ release, especially those who would be most unlikely to survive years in Russian captivity and who are almost certainly imprisoned for having supported their own country.
Likely death sentence for modest donations to Ukraine’s Armed Forces
Ivan Chorny (b. 1954) was sentenced on 18 June 2026 to 13 years’ maximum-security imprisonment for a donation to Ukraine’s Armed Forces of just over 100 euros. This was treated by the aggressor state which invaded and occupied Ivan Chorny’s home and then forced him to take Russian citizenship as ‘treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code.
Although the ‘court’s’ report states only that “a pensioner (b. 1954) was sentenced, the Russian state-controlled TASS names him as Ivan Chorny from Tokmak. The rest, whether from this kangaroo court or Russia’s propaganda media, seems largely copy-pasted from countless other such sentences. No mention is made of the fact that Russia has made it effectively impossible, especially for a pensioner in his 70s, to not take Russian citizenship. Instead, after saying that Chorny received such citizenship in June 2023, we are told that “he remained a supporter of Ukrainian ideology and felt animosity to the current Russian authorities”, including to what Russian sources insist on calling the ‘special military operation’ [i.e. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine].
He was ‘accused’ of having, from November 2023 to May 2025, sent money to Ukraine’s Armed Forces, using a Ukrainian mobile banking app, with the total amount given in hryvnia (4,100, or a little over 100 euros).
The invading state claimed that the 72-year-old Ukrainian, living in his own country, had committed ‘treason against Russia’ by giving, what it called “financial aid to a foreign state [sic!] in activities directed against Russia’s security.”. The conditions in Russian penal institutions are appalling, and it is most unlikely that the 72-year-old would survive 13 years, with this supposed to be followed by a year’s restricted liberty.
17 years for supporting Ukraine’s Defenders
An even worse sentence was reported on 17 June against an unnamed Ukrainian (b. 1989) from Krasnohvardiiske Raion in occupied Crimea. The sentence was passed by the occupation ‘Crimean high court’ with the 37-year-old not only sentenced to 17 years’ maximum-security imprisonment, followed by an 18-month term of restricted liberty, but also ordered to pay a 200 thousand rouble fine.
The Ukrainian had, it was asserted, transferred amounts of money to the Ukrainian Armed Forces on numerous occasions from March 2022 through February 2024, There were five ‘hearings’, and the reading out of the sentence, with all held behind closed doors.
Maryna Meshkova
The 14-year-sentence against 44-year-old Maryna Meshkova from occupied Melitopol was similar although it included an added element because of the allegation that she donated money both to Ukraine’s Armed Forces and to the Free Russia Legion (See: Melitopol mother of two sentenced to 14 years for donations to help Ukraine )
Leonid Horetsky
If, in the above cases, we can only guess from the timing of the donations when the person was first taken prisoner, we know that Leonid Horetsky, who is 50 and from occupied Sevastopol, was abducted and disappeared on, or just before, 22 March 2025.
The next information would appear to have been the 17-year maximum-security sentence passed by the occupation ‘Sevastopol city court’ on 15 June 2026. Everything was behind closed doors, with the occupiers deciding what information (or disinformation) was made public. The sentence was passed by ‘judge’ Danil Zemliukov, a Russian who has taken part in a number of politically motivated sentences. Horetsky was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security prison colony, followed by a year’s restricted liberty. A 300 thousand rouble fine was also imposed.
Horetsky was convicted of ‘treason’ under Article 275 and of “possession of explosive substances and explosive devices, with the use of the Internet’ (Article 222.1 § 3a (whatever that is). It was claimed that he had maintained contact with Ukraine’s Military Intelligence and had been supposed to move explosive devices and substances from one secret hiding place to another, but was, allegedly “detained” while trying to do so.
Had this genuinely been the case, there would surely have been no need to abduct him and hold him incommunicado, probably without any official status or charges, for close on a year.
Niyara Ersmambetova
The Crimean Human Rights Group reported on 18 June that Niyara Ersmambetova declared a hunger strike on 8 June in protest at the unendurable conditions in the SIZO [remand prison]. She is held in a cell which was previously used for people with tuberculosis. The toilet in the cell does not work and those imprisoned there have been told that it will not be repaired. Niyara has already suffered a significant deterioration in her health and with sugar level too high and a rash over her body.
Niyara Ersmambetova was also abducted and disappeared in June 2025, just a week after the funeral of her mother. Niyara has a 16-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter who were left with their grandfather, who is 70 and has Grade II disability status In December 2025, she was sentenced to 15 years for supposedly having helped the partisan resistance movement ATESH and passed on information about a fuel depot and about the location of anti-aircraft defence systems. This too was claimed to have been ‘treason’ against Russia.
