Abducted, raped and tortured, Natalia Kozhemiatska faces huge sentence in Russia on fabricated charges

Russia is known to be holding 403 Ukrainian women prisoner, although the real number could be much higher. The Russians began abducting civilians from all occupied territory back in 2022, and there remain a number of civilian hostages, first seized by Russia’s proxy ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics’ seven or eight years ago.  Most have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment and very many have also been victims of sexual violence.

One of the most chilling aspects of Russia’s abductions and treatment of civilians is how little is often known.  It was thanks to the courage demonstrated by Natalia Vlasova during her fake ‘trial’ in 2024-25 in Russia that we know of the horrific torture and systematic gang rape to which she was subjected from her abduction in Russia’s proxy ‘Donetsk republic’ back in March 2019.  

Some of the scant details known about one of Russia’s more recent victims, Natalia Kozhemiatska from Nova Kakhovka (Kherson oblast), first came to light after the Russians pretended, fleetingly, to release her, possibly in order to fake the time of her alleged ‘arrest’, given the initial treatment she received. 

The following details were provided to the ZMINA Human Rights Centre by Kozhemiatska’s sister, Tetiana.   She explained that her sister, together with her husband and father, had remained in Nova Kakhovka after the city fell under Russian occupation following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  Tetiana moved with her family in April 2022 to government-controlled territory on the right bank of Kherson oblast. 

Natalia had earlier worked in a shop however this closed after the full-scale invasion, and she was forced to take up work at a cigarette kiosk in the city.  She worked with another woman, but she was designated the senior of the two and was responsible for locking up the kiosk in the evening and taking all the goods home with her.

Tetiana says that she spoke with her sister every day and asserts that she had never had any problems with the occupation regime.  On 17 May 2024, they learned from Natalia’s husband that she had been seized by armed Russians as she was walking to the kiosk to lock up for the night.

The Russians brought Natalia home a day later, in the evening of 18 May.  She looked terrified and spoke of having been tortured with the use of electric currents (attached to sensitive parts of the body, with the pain excruciating). She arranged with her mother that the latter would come over the next day.

This had, however, all been a trick.  The Russians returned at around 10 in the evening and ordered her to dress warmly as she was “going with them for a long time”. 

Natalia disappeared, with her family unable to find out anything for a long time.  Tetiana immediately reported her disappearance (/ abduction) to the Ukrainian police and other relevant authorities.  Natalia’s mother reported her missing to the occupation ‘police’ on 31 May 2024.  The official response was that Natalia had not been detained.  In private conversations with her mother, however, they did admit that Natalia had been taken away by Russia’s FSB [security service]. 

There are people whom the Russians abducted back in 2022, whose whereabouts they are continuing to conceal.  Here, however, the Russians returned in June 2024 and carried out a search of Natalia’s apartment, taking her passport and personal items.

Natalia’s mother travelled to the SIZO [remand prisons] in occupied Chonhar and Henichesk, with no success.  At one point, the occupation ‘Kherson regional prosecutor’ responded with a message asserting that Natalia’s whereabouts were known and claiming that she was not the victim of a crime and had not been subjected to unlawful treatment.  Even more chillingly, it was asserted that Natalia herself had no complaints to the ‘Russian police’ and asked her family to stop looking for her.

At this stage, Tetiana says, they knew that her sister had been taken from Kherson oblast, but not where she had been taken.

It was only on 5 August 2024 that Natalia was allowed a two-minute meeting with her mother, with this under the constant scrutiny of a guard in the room. Under such circumstances, the fact that Natalia said that all was well and that her mother was not to worry means nothing.   During the following month, all requests for meetings, as well as permission to get parcels with food, items of hygiene, etc. to Natalia were turned down.

In September 2024, Natalia’s mother, however, received a phone call telling her to bring warmer things for her daughter.  She received another call on 10 November, this time from a person who claimed to be Natalia’s lawyer and asked her mother to sign a contract with him to provide legal assistance during the pre-investigative stage.  It was only after that document was signed that the family learned that Natalia was imprisoned in occupied Novotroitske and that they could pass on parcels with food items, etc.

They learned also that the Russians were claiming that Natalia was a Russian citizen, which was not the case when she was abducted, and were accusing her of an attempt on the life of Maksym Kary, a collaborator installed by the Russians as ‘head of the Nova Kakhovka civic defence.  The charge appears to be based on a photo that the Russians’ found on her phone of a gutted-out car.

Natalia’s mother was able to see her on 25 November 2024 in Novotroitske, and learned that during that first day after she was abducted, she had been savagely raped.  Her mother was extremely concerned at how shocking Natalia looked and how thin she had become.

Natalia Kozhematska is now facing several charges, most of which were not mentioned at the beginning.  The Russians are accusing her, and, seemingly, three other people, of involvement in the death of a Russian FSB major, M.I. Sverdlyakov, as well as of the attempted killing of Maksym Kary.  The charges are, as always illegally, under three articles of Russia’s criminal code – homicide (Articles 30 § 3 and 105) and of an attempt on the life of a so-called ‘law-enforcement officer’ (Article 317).

It is likely that Natalia was targeted because the FSB first seized others who falsely named her, most probably under torture.  It seems clear also that the ‘investigators’ put pressure on her to not question her detention and, perhaps, to reject the services of her lawyer who had, in December 2024, sought her release under house arrest. 

She is now imprisoned in Rostov where her ‘trial’ will take place at the same notorious Southern District Military Court which has been passing horrific sentences against Ukrainian political prisoners since 2014.