The latest such ‘trial’ was announced on 16 September, with a 12-year sentence passed within 24 hours. Natalia Nadeiina, who is 69 and walks with crutches, was sentenced to 12 years for 39 donations to help Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The aggressor state which invaded Nadeiina’s home city of Tokmak claimed that the Ukrainian pensioner had committed ‘treason’ against Russia by supporting the defenders of her own native Ukraine.
The Russian occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’ report on 17 September states that Nadeiina had opposed Russia’s so-called ‘special military operation’ (i.e. its full-scale invasion of Ukraine) and the policies of the Russian authorities, “despite having received Russian citizenship in August 2023”. It is silent about the fact that Russia is forcing Ukrainians to take its passport, with a woman in her sixties who even in 2021 walked with a stick and now uses crutches, unable to receive healthcare without such a passport.
It is not clear in any specific case how the invaders discovered that a Ukrainian has made money transfers to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces. This may have been discovered if Nadeiina was stopped and her telephone checked, however Internet providers may also, unfortunately, be passing on such information. It is also possible that some of the messages on Telegram channels that ask for donations are plants by Russia’s FSB. In this case, though, Nadeina is claimed to have made 39 money transfers, totalling the equivalent of 623 euros, from August 2023 through May 2025. It seems unlikely that the FSB would have waited so long to attack were the address fake.
An illegitimate ‘court’ of the occupying state claimed that, by making such donations’ to an army defending its own territory, Nadeiina had committed ‘state treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code. Such ‘treason’ was described as “financial help by a Russian citizen to a foreign state for action directed against Russia’s security.”
Natalia Nadeiina (b. 1957) was taken into custody in the ‘courtroom’ and had previously been under house arrest. This is effective confirmation of a severe disability or other similar reasons, as it is standard for the Russians to place someone in detention as soon as the person’s ‘arrest’ is officially registered. This can come months, or even years, after the person was actually seized, and held incommunicado, without any official charges or status. Nadeiina’s extremely limited mobility and age did not stop the so-called ‘judge’ from passing a 12-year medium-security imprisonment sentence. Even if Nadeiina was seized last year, that would still mean that she was over 80 when the sentence ended, yet the ‘court’ also ordered a further one year of restricted liberty.
Russia has already passed a huge number of such sentences for donations, including very many against men and women of retirement age. There is often terrifyingly little information about a person, with it only because the surname can be heard in the sentencing that Natalia Nadeiina’s identity is known.
The project If there was no war has also discovered the name of one of the oldest political prisoners, sentenced to 14 years for donations. Neonila Zinkivska (b. 6.04.1952) was sentenced by this same fake ‘court’ on identical charges on 26 August 2026, with the sentence meaning that she could be up to 88 when released. (see: Brutality unlimited as Russia sentences 74-year-old to 14 years, 70-year-old to 15 years for loyalty to Ukraine)
The following are just the men and women over sixty whom the Russian invaders have seized and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for their support of Ukraine and its defenders.
The following list of Ukrainians aged 60 and over who were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for donations to their own country’s Armed Forces is, unfortunately, unlikely to be full. Although there are especially acute concerns about the health of Halyna Bekter, Russia is endangering all of them given the conditions in Russian prisons and the effective lack of any adequate healthcare.
Halyna Bekhter
Serhiy Chebukin
Ivan Chorny
Pensioners and mothers targeted for Russia’s ‘treason trial’ terror in occupied Ukraine
Vitaliy Ilyin
Svitlana Loi ; Neonila Zinkivska
Iryna Sukhovei
Mykola Tynkov (b.1955)
10-year sentence for love of Ukraine against 71-year-old pensioner under Russian occupation
