Just over a year after Olha Hulchak was sentenced by the Russian occupation ‘Kherson regional court’ to 12 years for donations to Ukraine’s defenders, that same illegal body has sentenced Olha’s husband, Volodymyr Hulchak to 16 years in a maximum-security prison colony for supposed ‘spying’. Both husband and wife, who were abducted from occupied Chaplynka in Kherson oblast, were charged with ‘state treason’ under Article 275 of the aggressor state’s criminal code for remaining true to Ukraine.
Volodymyr Hulchak (b. 3.08.1984) and Olha Hulchak (b. 25.10.1982) have three sons, two of whom are still under 18. Russia’s use of the couple’s Russian citizenship as pretext for bringing serious ‘treason’ charges seems especially cynical given that one of the methods the Russian occupiers use to foist Russian passports on Ukrainian citizens is to threaten to take their children away if at least one parent does not take Russian citizenship. Then the invaders separated parents and children anyway, by taking Volodymyr and Olha prisoner. It is only because their eldest son is of age himself, that he was able to assume his brothers’ care and prevent them being placed in a children’s home.
As is so often the case with people seized on occupied territory, we do not know how long they have been in Russian captivity. Since the charges in both cases refer to donations or alleged spying in September 2023, it is quite possible that they were abducted almost three years ago. It is extremely likely that they were held incommunicado for a long time, with such periods, standardly used by the FSB to extract ‘confessions’ through torture and other forms of duress.
There is similarly no information as to whether there were even some imitation hearings before the occupation ‘Kherson regional court’ announced the ‘guilty’ verdict and sentence against Volodymyr Hulchak on, or before, 7 September. The occupation prosecutor asserted that proof had been presented that Hulchak had contacted representatives of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence in September 2023 and had “voluntarily gathered information about places of deployment of the RF armed forces’ military technology and personnel. He had, purportedly, sent this via a messenger service on many occasions to his ‘handlers’. Aside from the month and year, this is essentially identical to numerous other such indictments against Ukrainians from occupied Territory. So is the sentence that follows, with this claiming that “the information passed on could be used to carry out armed attacks on places of deployment of Russian military and technology.
Volodymyr Hulchak was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison colony with a subsequent period of 18 months restricted liberty. He was also ordered to pay a massive 350 thousand roubles.
Olha Hulchak
A video was broadcast on propaganda media in November 2024, with this supposedly of the FSB’s search of Olha Hulchak’s home and her ‘arrest’. This may be the case, but such videos are often broadcast months or longer after a person was really taken prisoner.
On the video, Olha states that she transferred money about six times in response to a request from somebody she knew in Chaplynka. She says simply that she knew the money was for Ukraine’s Armed Forces without expressing the ‘repentance’ demanded and often extracted through torture or threats. The ‘treason’ charges, under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code, were over very modest money transfers (around 1200 UAH, or 24 euros in total) for Ukraine’s Armed Forces. These were sent in August and September 2023.
In the report by the Russian occupation ‘Kherson regional court’ on 11 June 2025, it was claimed that the Ukrainian woman, described as a citizen of the Russian Federation, had committed treason “by providing financial assistance to a foreign state for activities aimed against the security of the Russian Federation.” In another sentence of this extraordinarily cynical indictment, it was asserted that the money was not for Ukraine’s Armed Forces, but for “Ukrainian armed formations”
Here too, it was quite unclear whether there had been any hearings before sentence was passed on 9 June 2025. For supporting Ukraine’s defenders, ‘judge’ Svetlana Vasilievna Kurayeva sentenced the then 42-year-old Ukrainian woman to 12 years’ imprisonment, to be followed by a year of restricted liberty. A fine of 100 thousand roubles was also imposed. This monstrous sentence was upheld on 10 September 2025 by Yelena Nikolaevna Kondakova, a ‘judge’ from the First court of appeal (general jurisdiction).
In its statement which applies to all such ‘trials’ over donations, Memorial stated that Olha Hulchak, together with Olena Penza and Yulia Stanika are “in the first instance citizens of Ukraine, and their persecution for treason against Russia, which attacked their country and violates their rights in occupation, is illegal and absurd. We furthermore consider that persecution under the article on state treason for financing Ukraine’s Army is, in principle, unfounded. It is the war of aggression launched by the authorities that threatens Russia’s security, not resistance to this aggression.”
