52-year-old Hanna Pyrozhenko has not been seen since 5 August 2026 when Russian FSB officers burst into her home in Pershokostiantynivka, a village in occupied Kherson oblast, and took her away. Her husband was beaten and tortured when he tried to find out where she had been taken and threatened with meeting the same fate as his wife if he didn’t leave occupied Kherson oblast.
It would, unfortunately, be misleading to call this the latest such abduction, as there may have been many since, with lawless abductions having become the terrifying reality on all areas under Russian occupation. The main difference this time is that Zarema Barieva from the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre learned of it and has managed to sound the alarm.
It seems that Hanna Pyrozhenko taught History in a local school for over twenty years before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia began aggressively installing its school curriculum and propaganda in all educational institutions on occupied territory. It expends vast amounts on trying to foist so-called ‘Russian patriotism’, glorify the Russian military and eradicate Ukrainian identity. History has been a particular target with the new ‘textbooks’ rewriting the historical facts about Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine which, according to the version teachers are forced to present was essentially started by Ukraine. Hanna Pyrozhenko resigned from her job, and devoted herself to caring for the home, her 83-year-old mother who is in ill health and her 77-year-old uncle who has disability status. It was because of her elderly relatives that she could not think of leaving occupied territory.
The FSB first turned up and carried out a search in January 2025. They found nothing and, on that occasion, simply left.
They appeared again 16 months later, on 5 August 2026. Barieva reports that they turned the place upside down and removed Hanna Pyrozhenko’s mobile phone and her laptop. She was given just minutes to change and was forced to go with them, without any explanation. The FSB first took her to the home of her sister who lives on the same street, and then drove away with her, still saying nothing about where she was being taken.
On 6 August, Hanna Pyrozhenko’s husband set out to try to find out where his wife was. It is probably an indicator of the total lawlessness that Russia has brought to territory occupied since 2022 that the Russians did not even resort to the standard denials that relatives of their victims receive in occupied Crimea. Instead, the man was himself seized, beaten and tortured with the use of a taser gun. They broke his ribs, removed his documents and then let him go, saying that if he did not leave occupied territory within a few days, he would be imprisoned “in a cell next to that of his wife”.
Hanna’s mother and uncle are now left without anyone to care for them, and it remains totally unclear what she is accused of. The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre were able to find out that she was initially taken to Chaplynka, then to Henichesk. The lawyer, appointed by her captors, stated that she would only be allowed home for so-called ‘investigative measures’ and gave no further information.
Russia brought disappearances to occupied territory back in 2014, however the scale changed massively after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Huge numbers of Ukrainian civilians were abducted from all areas which came under occupation. While some, like Iryna Horobtsova; Serhiy Tsyhipa; Yaroslav Zhuk; Appaz Kurtamet; Andriy Holubiev and others, were subjected to kangaroo court trials and sentenced to 10, 20 or more years’ imprisonment, the whereabouts of very many others remains unknown. In occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, as well as parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, occupied since 2022, we often learn of a horrific sentence on supposed ‘spying’ or ‘treason’ charges, with essentially nothing known about when the person was detained. In a worrying number of cases, even the person’s name is unknown.
There was earlier, as Barieva notes, slightly more attempt to imitate legality in occupied Crimea. In fact, the difference has been steadily eroded since 2022, with it increasingly the case that the FSB simply abduct a person and then deny any knowledge of their whereabouts for months or years. In some cases, human rights groups are able to ascertain where they are being held from their own sources, however it has also been the case that essentially nothing is known of a person’s fate until the occupation ‘court’ or ‘prosecutor’ reports a long sentence. It was only in June 2026, almost exactly 13 months after Serhiy Hrishchenkov was abducted from his home in occupied Sevastopol that the 59-year-old IT specialist was formally acknowledged to be in detention and charged with ‘treason’. 27-year-old Lera Dzhemilova was abducted and held totally incommunicado for 10 months before human rights groups at least learned where she was being held. The supposed ‘trial’ which sentenced the young woman to 15 years was behind closed doors
See also:
Maryna Ryf Maryna Ryff disappears in Russian-occupied Crimea after refusing to hide her pro-Ukrainian position
Anatoliy Kobzar
From enforced disappearance to imprisonment: Anatoliy Kobzar found after 19 months of Russian lies
Oleh Platonov and Natalia Poliukh
Russian FSB abduct Crimean couple, place their child in care
Tamara Chernukha
Niyara Ersmambetova
Abducted Crimean Tatar mother of two sentenced to 15 years on Russia's cynical ‘treason’ charges
Ismail Shemshedinov
Serhiy Lykhomanov
Russia sentences abducted Crimean to 15 years in second secret ‘trial’ on same absurd charges
