Russia’s occupation ‘Kherson regional court’ has passed a twelve and a half-year sentence against Nadiya Berezhna almost two and a half years after she and her husband Andriy Berezhny were abducted by the Russians from their home in occupied Nova Kakhovka (Kherson oblast). The couple’s two children – a daughter born in 2008 and 12-year-old son - are now in the care of Nadiya’s elderly father.
Although the ‘court’ did not give a name in its report on 22 October 2026, both the Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project and If there were no war Project believe the details match those of Nadiya and her husband Andriy Berezhny who was sentenced by this same kangaroo court to 11 years on 17 June 2026.
According to the If there were no war Project, the Russians came for Andriy Berezhny (b. 6 October 1991) first on 22 May 2024, with his wife Nadiya Berezhna (b. 31 July 1987) seized a week later, on 28 May. The couple simply vanished, with their relatives reporting them missing, although all that time they were held incommunicado, without any formal status or charges being laid. It was only on 15 May 2025, that the couple were officially ‘arrested’. Such prolonged periods where a person has not been officially registered as detained and can be held incommunicado, without access to lawyers, are typically used to extract ‘confessions’ through torture and / or threats to family members. They can also be used for fabricating ‘evidence’, although it is unclear how much the FSB would bother in this case where both ‘trials’ were doubtless held behind closed doors, before an entirely illegitimate occupation ‘court’ whose website to this day does not provide information about any hearings in the ‘trial’.
Effectively nothing more was known until 17 June 2026, when the sentence against Andriy Berezhny was reported, first by the occupation ‘prosecutor’ and then by the same ‘Kherson regional court’. Andriy Berezhny was accused of ‘spying’, under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code, with this meaning that he has not taken Russian citizenship.
It was claimed that he had, in October 2023, gathered information about the movements and places of deployment of Russian military personnel and technology and passed these on “to another person who subsequently passed them to representatives of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence”. All of these reports copy-paste a sentence about how the information could have been used for military strikes against Russian positions. No mention is, obviously, made of the fact that these positions, the military personnel and Russian military hardware are all illegally on Ukrainian territory. That is, nonetheless, of the greatest relevance since, even if the couple did indeed pass on such information, they were doing so as Ukrainians on Ukrainian territory to those defending their country against an invading power. Russia, in contrast, is flouting international law not only through its war of aggression against Ukraine and illegal occupation, but through its persecution of Ukrainian citizens and their prosecution under Russian legislation.
Andriy Berezhny was sentenced on 17 June 2026 to 11 years’ maximum-security imprisonment. Most worryingly, the If there was no war project reports that the sentence was not appealed and has now entered into force. This could mean that Andriy was told, and unfortunately had every reason to believe, that the sentence would be considerably higher if he didn’t admit to the charges, or that other methods of duress were also used. The sentence was passed by ‘judge’ Svetlana Vasilyevna Kuraeva, with this, even given the scant information about most such ‘trials’, by no means the first politically motivated sentence she has passed.
Nadiya Berezhna was sentenced on 21 October 2026 by Airat Vazykhovych Galliamov from the same ‘Kherson regional court’ to 12.5 years in a ‘medium-security’ prison colony, the harshest of women’s prisons, to be followed by 18 months’ restricted liberty.
She was charged with ‘treason’, under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code, this meaning that she had taken Russian citizenship. This, it should be stressed, is most unlikely to have been a voluntary act. Russia is illegally foisting its citizenship on residents of occupied territory, with one of the many methods used involving children. If at least one parent does not have a Russian passport, the occupation regime can take their children away.
Other than this difference, the indictment was essentially the same. The claim here was that, from October 2023 to April 2024, the couple had both gathered the information about movements and deployment of military personnel and hardware, and that Nadiya Berezhna had passed this on by an Internet messenger to representatives of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence. It is chillingly unclear even if there were any ‘hearings’ before the predetermined sentence was announced.
