‘I got caught in your meat grinder’ — the appeals court in the Russian Federation upheld Ukrainian Ivan Zabavsky behind bars

We wrote about Ivan Zabavsky. His mother, Maryna Alekseevna, lived in Tavilzhanka, Kupyansky district. This village fell under occupation in the very first days of the full-scale invasion. Ivan was caught up in the war in Kharkiv.

“Vanya went to get you!”

— My son is not a soldier; he once served a long time ago, and then he was engaged in business, selling in Dvorichna showroom, until he had to close his business due to quarantine, — Maryna Oleksiyevna told us. — He rented an apartment in Kharkiv, and since September 2022, he has been volunteering, delivering medicines and bread to deoccupied villages.

On September 25, Maryna’s older sister, Tetyana, was killed during shelling. The front line passed almost through the village. Shells flew right over her head. Maryna Oleksiyevna decided to leave. It was safer to do it in the direction of the occupied territory, so she set off for the neighboring village of Budyonovka. She did not even suspect that simultaneously Ivan was going on a bicycle towards Tavilzhanka. During the counteroffensive, the situation on the front changed almost every hour. On many interactive maps in those days, Tavilzhanka was already marked in green — “near Ukraine.” However, the Russians remained there.

— On September 30, I contacted my family, and they told me: “Vanya went to get you!” He wanted to take me away from home and evacuate me. He left his things, bread, and medicine behind... He took a bicycle from people and left Dvorichna, from the deoccupied territory to the occupied one. I thought: “Where did he go? Russian soldiers are sitting in the houses there!” But I hoped that he would come. I waited.

Then, months of searching began: Belgorod, appeals to all authorities, and silence. When the fighting in Tavilzhanka subsided a bit, the woman went home. One of the neighbors confirmed her terrible suspicions: she saw Ivan being led away by Russian soldiers. Only six months later, in May 2023, she received a response from the Russian Ministry of Defense. The wording is standard: “Detained for opposing the Special Military Operation. He is on the territory of the Russian Federation.” As it turned out later, all this time, when Maryna Zabavaskaya was knocking on the doors of Belgorod officials’ offices, her son was being held not far away — in a prison in Stary Oskol near Belgorod, without contact with the outside world.

— In June 2023, I returned to Kharkiv, and journalists from “Mediazona” contacted me in July. They told me that Ivan was being tried for espionage.

Trail

In January 2025, the St. Petersburg City Court sentenced Ivan Zabavsky to 11 years in prison on charges of espionage — “collecting and transmitting information on behalf of foreign intelligence (SBU)” for use against Russia’s security.

In his last words, Ivan Zabavsky spoke about the beatings and hunger he endured in captivity: “Your honor, ... please take into account the 10 months that the investigation concealed, and the Ministry of Defense confirmed... Those long and terrible 10 months in captivity, in which a day seemed like a year, or maybe an eternity, when they beat me at least twice or even three times a day. Hunger, the worst thing is hunger. Lunch, the first course and second, was 150 grams. The food was like grass: raw and rotten. Lice simply gnawed at us, dysentery, humiliation, and more beatings. Alive? Electricity, rubber batons — some bruises went away, others appeared. And so every day: torture and interrogations. Please take into account the hell that I went through and felt!”

Why the man was tried all the way in St. Petersburg is unknown. “That’s how it was decided,” — his lawyer joked. “Thanks to this decision, Ivan visited our wonderful city, where he had never been. I would have liked it to have happened under different circumstances, of course.”

Appeal

As journalists from “Mediazona” reported, the session of the Court of Appeal on June 17 was held behind closed doors: “After the three judges entered the office, they turned on white noise through loudspeakers in the corridor — they usually do this near the halls where cases containing state secrets are being considered.”

“First Department” published Ivan Zabashky’s last words before the appeal. We are publishing excerpts from it.

— …I have been in your “meat grinder” system for three years. The system that crushes everyone and everything, where formalities and bureaucracy are just an entourage (alleged detention, alleged investigation, alleged trial, alleged another trial).

I will not be hypocritical and say what everyone has known for a long time but was afraid to say. I will start with the detention. What the troops of a foreign state did in the Kharkiv region is a mystery for the citizens of Ukraine, but in Russia, it was called liberation. And I was liberated from my house, car, district, brothers, and sisters. I was liberated from my freedom and peaceful life.

Then, in 2022, I went to rescue my mother from the shelling. I was informed that my house was under the control of our Ukrainian troops. However, near the house, I was detained by Russian forces, and they saw so-called “toxic photos” on my phone. That’s how I ended up in the meat grinder of your system. After my detention, I was superbly tortured, beaten with batons, kicked, shot over the head, and threatened with murder.

I was tortured for eight hours a day for the first seven days. On the seventh day, papers were brought to my bloody face for signature.

A criminal case must be opened within 48 hours of my detention by law. However, the case was not opened despite alleged indications of the crime being discovered immediately. Yes, without opening a criminal case, I was placed as a prisoner in the Belgorod “black facility,” a pre-trial detention center. I was in incommunicado status for 10 months. I was brutally beaten every day. After that, they put handcuffs on my hands and feet, tied a noose around my neck, and, pulling a bag over my head, brought me to St. Petersburg.

The investigation produced eight volumes. My fault is that I am a Ukrainian who lived not far from the border and became a hostage of circumstances, defending my home and country. You essentially kidnapped me, and I ended up in your meat grinder. And you are trying me according to the laws of your country, although I did not come to you. You put people in prison even “based on words”, without evidence, at the command “close the case”.

I am the people! I am a simple citizen, a Khokhol, if you like, who does not understand state plans and geopolitical tasks. I eat lard and drink vodka. I think about how to feed my family, and I am against war and any violence.

And you made me a spy! Where is your objective justice?

… At least take into account my 10 months of torture. Start with yourself!

You will be judged by the same laws you judge!

Do not forget, you are judging a Ukrainian, to whom grief has come home uninvited.

The soul of every person, when it leaves the body and becomes pristine, goes to God and stands before him, just as I am standing before you now. And that judgment will be fair, not like the one now!

We, Ukrainians, are strong people, and we will follow our path to the end because the truth is with us, and God is with us!

Russia is holding thousands of civilian Ukrainians captive. According to the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, it is about 16 thousand; the “Civilians in Captivity” initiative calls the figure 18 thousand prisoners. There is no procedure for exchanging civilian prisoners. Most of them are undergoing terrible torture.

Recently, there has been a trend toward an increase in the number of sentences handed down to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian prisoners by courts in the Russian Federation and the occupied territories — in 2023, there were dozens of cases, and last year the number was in the hundreds.