A year after Victoria Serhieieva was seized on her arrival at a Russian airport and disappeared, a ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has sentenced the 56-year-old to 15 years on supposed ‘treason’ charges. These were laid over alleged donations in support of Ukraine’s Armed Forces with Russia using the Russian citizenship which it effectively forces on all Ukrainians living on occupied territory, as excuse for claiming that support for Serhieieva’s own country constituted ‘treason’. Although such monstrous sentences for supporting Ukraine have become common, Victoria Serhieieva’s case stands out because of her effective abduction and the torture to which she was subjected to get her to admit to the charges. It also differs in that Serhieieva denies having made any such donations since 2021 and retracted the ‘confession’ extracted through torture.
As reported, Serhieieva disappeared after arriving at Sochi Airport from Istanbul on 21 August 2025, with it six months before Russia’s FSB concocted ‘treason’ charges, As is increasingly often the case, this was more like an enforced disappearance than an arrest, with Victoria’s children long having no idea what had happened to their mother and where she was.
Details only emerged in May 2026 with a report from the Pyerviy Otdel Russian human rights initiative, based on Serhieieva’s own account. The Russian border guards had immediately demanded to see her Ukrainian passport and understood from this that she had spent almost the entire summer in mainland Ukraine. They grilled her themselves and also brought in the FSB.
Serhieieva’s mobile telephone was taken away almost immediately and, illegally, checked without her being present. The Russians demanded to know the passwords from her Ukrainian banking apps, shouting and threatening her until she agreed. A little later they showed her bank transfers in hryvnia which she had supposedly made to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces as well as to some Ukrainian civic funds. She asserts that she never made such transfers and says that she had virtually not used Ukrainian bank services since 2021 and had left the phone which was linked to the account in mainland Ukraine.
The officers who interrogated her at the beginning drew attention to her children’s passports, hinting that they too could face ‘problems’. Serhieieva recalls that she was beside herself with anxiety and signed the document with her supposed ‘confession’ that they thrust in front of her. She did so, however, after promises that everything would end with a fine and that she would be able to return home.
Instead, she was arrested, although initially in a series of ‘carousel arrests’ on administrative charges. She was first jailed for 13 days for having, purportedly, not shown her passport, then for a further 15 days on a charge of not obeying the police. There were four such terms of administrative arrest, with the FSB and police appearing with a new protocol of charges as she was due to be leaving the place of imprisonment. Serhieieva’s requests both to see a lawyer and to contact her children were rejected. She recalls also that, during one of these terms of imprisonment, she was given food and her medication only when she agreed to sign the protocol they put in front of her.
In September 2025, she was told that “Moscow has agreed your prosecution on treason charges” and that she was to be moved to the Voronezh oblast. This was to the notorious Borisoglebsk SIZO [remand prison] where, as well as Ukrainian prisoners of war, the prison staff reportedly torture women. She and the other women, who had not been convicted of any crime, were constantly insulted, shouted out, forced to stand and listen to or sing the Russian national anthem both morning and evening. During inspections of their cells, the women had to stand, with their face to the wall, their legs spread out and arms raised. After their shower, they were forced to stand, stretched out, for 10-15 minutes, read ‘patriotic verse’ and ‘thank’ the guards for their wash. Serhieieva also asserts that, during medical examinations, the women were forced to undress in front of men in masks who commented on their bodies and laughed at them. She herself was beaten once, after she complained of pain in her knees. On another occasion they threatened to use electric shocks against her.
Serhieieva was held incommunicado, in virtually total isolation, for almost five months. It was only on 28 January 2026 that she was officially charged with ‘treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code.
The secrecy continued, with Ukrainian human rights groups only learning in late August that Victoria Serhieieva had been ‘convicted’ on 31 July and sentenced to 15 years medium-security imprisonment, followed by a further year’s restricted liberty. No name was given, however Crimean Process notes that the person’s year of birth and other circumstances made it clear that the target was Serhieieva.
It was claimed that she had, from April through October 2022, transferred over 23 thousand roubles (230 euros) to a bank account collecting money for Ukraine’s Armed Forces and that she “realized that the money will be used to resist and cause harm to the RF armed forces”.
Serhieieva had retracted the ‘confession’ obtained under duress, yet the ‘trial’ before the occupation ‘Crimean high court’ consisted of just eight ‘hearings’, all held behind closed doors. The ‘judge’ in the case was Victor Ivanovich Zinkov who is wanted in Ukraine on charges of state treason and who has been involved in sentencing other Ukrainian political prisoners. He was presiding ‘judge’ in the political trial of Mejlis leader Akhtem Chiygoz back in 2017 and that of Mejlis leader, journalist and civic activist Nariman Dzhelyal and two cousins, Asan and Aziz Akhtemov in 2022.
The sentence is still subject to appeal, however there are as few grounds for optimism about the outcome of that appeal, as there are for considering that Victoria Serhieieva’s abduction and the predetermined hearings before an occupation Crimean ‘court’ had anything to do with a fair trial.
