Women increasingly targeted in huge sentences on ‘spying / treason’ charges in Russian-occupied Luhansk region

At least five Ukrainians, including two students, have recently received huge sentences in occupied Luhansk oblast, with the charges virtually identical in each case.  The only real difference was whether the Ukrainians, abducted from their own homes on Ukrainian territory, were illegally charged with ‘spying’, under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code or were charged with ‘treason’, having been forced by the invaders to take Russian citizenship.  All such ‘trials’ are also identical in taking place before an illegitimate occupation ‘court’ which has not once acquitted a person in such political cases. Russia is in violation of international law by bringing any such charges under Russian law, but is also violating the victims fundamental rights by holding them incommunicado, almost certainly without access to an independent lawyer and without any chance of a fair trial.

Iryna Zaitseva

42-year-old Iryna Zaitseva, who is from the Stanytsia-Luhansk raion in the so-called ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ [‘LPR’] was sentenced on 27 August 2025 to twelve years and two months in a medium-security prison colony on ‘treason’ charges, under Article 275.

It was claimed that she had, in August 2023, gathered information about the places of deployment of units of the invading Russian army and passed this to the Ukrainian Security Service [SBU] via an Internet messenger. 

Although the Telegram channel videos, clearly posted by Russia’s FSB, appeared to show both her ‘arrest’ and Zaitseva in ‘court’, the Russian sources themselves stated that she was  ‘detained’ after the alleged sending of information.  This means that she has already been held in captivity for two years.

It is, however, chillingly typical of Russia’s abduction of civilians on occupied territory and the kangaroo court nature of subsequent ‘trials’ that the first information about the charges against Zaitseva was just over a month ago.  On 14 July 2025, the ‘LPR prosecutor’ reported that the indictment against Zaitseva has been “passed to the occupation ‘LPR high court’. 

All such Russian ‘trials’, whether on spying or treason charges, are held behind closed doors, with no way of finding out even if Zaitseva had a lawyer.  Given that the ‘sentence’ was passed so swiftly, it is quite possible that there were no ‘hearings’ as such, simply the day on which sentence was handed down, namely 27 August.  

The occupation ‘prosecutor’ claimed that Zaitseva had “changed her views under the influence of foreign resources” and that she “did not accept the aims “ of what Russia continues to call its ‘special military operation’.  By ‘foreign resources’ are probably meant the Ukrainian websites and other sources of information that Russia is currently blocking and persecuting people on occupied territory for accessing.

Lolita Vasylenko

A day earlier, the same occupation ‘LPR high court’ sentenced 25-year-old Lolita Vasylenko to 15 years’ imprisonment. 

The young woman was charged with exactly the same actions, but under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code ‘spying’.  Russia has very aggressively foisted its citizenship, making it effectively impossible to live, work, receive healthcare without a Russian passport.  The fact that she does not have one, since otherwise the charge would have been of ‘treason’, may well be because she has been imprisoned since late 2022 or soon after.  The alleged ‘spying’ (i.e. passing information about the deployment of an invading army on Ukrainian territory to the Ukrainian Security Service) is supposed to have taken place in the autumn of 2022.

Victoria Pieshkova and Ruslan Levenets

On 1 July 2025, the same occupation ‘LPR high court’ sentenced to young Ukrainian students from Luhansk oblast to huge terms of imprisonment on ‘treason’ charges.  The charges were also essentially identical, with the ‘treason’ indictment purely because both were described as ‘Russian citizens’.

The occupation prosecution accused 23-year-old Victoria Pieshkova of have been “recruited by an SBU officer” in June 2023 and of having,, together with fellow student, 22-year-old Ruslan Levenets, “voluntarily gathered information aimed against the security of the Russian Federation.”

There seems to have been an extra charge of ‘abetting treason’, but both were also charged with ‘treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code.  Pieshkova was sentenced to 15 years in a medium security prison colony to be followed by a further years’ restricted liberty.  

Levenets was sentenced to 13 years in a maximum-security prison colony. 

Svitlana Kovaliova

On 27 June 2025, the same ’LPR court’ sentenced the 56-year-old Ukrainian to 15 years for supposedly ‘spying for the Ukrainian government’.  It was claimed that Kovaliova had, in May 2023, voluntarily gathered information about the position, number and makeup of the invading Russian forces in Luhansk oblast.  She had, purportedly passed this information on to the SBU via telephone calls.  This was treated as ‘spying’ under Article 276 of the aggressor state’s criminal code as Kovaliova clearly only has Ukrainian citizenship.

The above list is, unfortunately, unlikely to be exhaustive.  Over the same period, at least one man who was unnamed throughout, was sentenced on identical charges to 17 years.