Russia does not just eliminate independent media on any territory that falls under its occupation. It also persecutes Ukrainians for expressing their opinion on social media – now, or some time in the past.
In the past week two Crimeans: 60-year-old Alla Batsiura and 55-year-old Ruslan Useinov received sentences of 5.5 and 6.5 years, respectively, for supposed ‘calls to terrorism’ in comments on social media. In other occupied parts of Ukraine, cases are on the increase in prosecutions over social media comments back in 2022. For the moment, these tend to be administrative prosecutions, for so-called ‘discrediting of Russia’s armed forces’ or similar, however that could easily change.
Alla Batsiura
The 60-year-old from Alushta was charged with two supposed ‘offences’, both under Article 205.2 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code. This imposes criminal liability and sentences of up to 7 years for whatever the Russian prosecution chooses to consider ‘public calls to, justification or propaganda of terrorism, carried out with the use of the Internet.’
The charges were over comments under posts on the Internet, including about the temporary closure of the ‘Crimea Bridge’ from occupied Kerch to Russia and about an air raid. The comments are claimed to have been calls to “carry out an act of terrorism” by destroying the ‘Crimea Bridge’, as a site of critically important infrastructure of the Russian Federation. We do not know what, exactly, Alla Batsiura wrote, however Russia’s ‘Crimea Bridge’ was built illegally and has been used since early 2022 for transporting weapons, military technology and personnel for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. it is, in short, a totally legitimate target,
Russia has also made it next to impossible to monitor such ‘trials’. Although they are not, in theory, held behind closed doors, the secrecy on the court’s website means that information becomes available from Russian occupation sources only after sentence has been passed, in this case, by Arslan Zhaginov, a ‘judge’ from the Southern District Military Court who is in violation of international law by trying a Ukrainian citizen from occupied Crimea under Russian legislation.
On 15 May 2026 Zhaginov sentenced 56-year-old Raisa Serohlazova to five and a half years on the same charges. It was claimed that on 17 July 2023, she had posted a comment in which she allegedly “called for missile strikes on places where Russian military and technology are deployed, including one of the checkpoints in Crimea.’
It is worth noting that the details about the charges makes it quite clear that the alleged calls to commit an act of terrorism do not comply with the definition of terrorism in Russia’s own legislation, passed in 2006.
Ruslan Useinov (b. 1970)
The same Southern District Military Court, seemingly on 1 July 2026, sentenced Crimean Tatar Ruslan Useinov to six and a half years’ imprisonment, also under Article 205.2 § 2. The FSB in occupied Crimea circulated a video showing their gratuitously violent ‘arrest’ of the 56-year-old from Simferopol. It was claimed that he had, under the pseudonym Aitmar Aitmarov, posted three comments, “containing calls to carry out missile strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation”. Here too, the Russian-imposed secrecy makes it impossible to gauge why Useinov was targeted and what the comments were.
See also:
Vitaliy Trofymchuk
Oleksandr Maliarenko
Crimean sentenced to 5.5 years for social media comments in support of Ukraine’s Armed Forces
Serhiy Obushny
Crimean pensioner sentenced to six years for social media comments against Russian aggression
Serhiy Tubolets
Tetiana Deviatkina
Russian invaders sentence Tetiana Deviatkina to 6 years for criticizing them on social media
