Horrific sentences on absurd ‘spying’ charges in occupied Luhansk oblast as Russia increasingly targets Ukrainian women
Russia has used a kangaroo court in occupied Luhansk oblast to sentence 47-year-old Iryna Koroloiova to 15 years’ imprisonment, with the charges essentially identical to those cited two days earlier in the sentencing by this same ‘court’ of Svitlana Haieva, also to 15 years. This is no coincidence, with Russia largely copy-pasting the same charges from one purported ‘trial’ to another on any territory currently under Russian occupation. In essentially all such cases, Ukrainian citizens, living on Ukrainian territory are accused of having gathered and passed on information about the deployment of the armed forces of the aggressor state to Ukrainian defenders. There would, in short, be nothing at all illegal even were the charges to be true. There is, however, no guarantee that they are, as the Russians have often abducted Ukrainian civilians because of their pro-Ukrainian views, or for no discernible reason, and much later come up with such ‘spying’ charges.
Iryna Koroliova
Russia has crushed any independent media and blocked international observers on any territory that falls under its occupation. The terrorization of the local population, which dates back in occupied Donbas to 2014, is near total, with little or no information typically available about the victims of such persecution, unless they have relatives or friends outside occupied territory.
The only information about Koroliova has come from Russian-controlled sources which, on 18 July 2025, reported the ‘sentence’ passed by the so-called ‘Luhansk people’s republic high court’. The dates of the alleged ‘spying’ and the fact that the 47-year-old is described as a citizen of Ukraine only may suggest that she has been imprisoned for some time. The aggressor state has made it next to impossible to live on occupied Ukrainian territory without taking Russian citizenship. That citizenship is then, most cynically, used as excuse for charging a Ukrainian with ‘state treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code. Here Koroliova was charged, as a Ukrainian, with ‘spying’ under Article 276 of the same criminal code which Russia is illegally applying on occupied territory.
It was also claimed that she had gathered information about the Russian invaders and passed them to Ukraine’s security service from September 2022 through March 2023, with the cut-off date often providing indication of when the person was abducted.
Even if we ignore the fact that Russia’s prosecution of any Ukrainian on occupied territory under Russian legislation is in violation of the Geneva Convention, there is still no likelihood that Iryna Koroliova had anything even remotely resembling a fair trial,
Svitlana Haieva
An identical sentence from this same fake ‘court’ was announced two days earlier against Svitlana Haieva, described as a 49-year-old citizen of Ukraine. The only difference was that her supposed ‘spying’ was alleged to have been from June through August 2023.
Oleksadnr Ryzhkov, Iryna Ryzhkova
On 10 July the same occupation ‘court’ convicted a married couple – 49-year-old Oleksandr Ryzhkov and 42-year-old Iryna Ryzhkova of the same ‘spying’ charge under Article 276. It was claimed that they had gathered and passed to Ukraine’s Security Service information about Russian military places of deployment in Novoaidar, as well as information about Russian military receiving treatment.
In this case, it was asserted that the couple had, in May 2022 provided information about the deployment of Russian military in Novoaidar. Then in January 2023, Iryna Ryzhkova, who worked in a medical establishment, was claimed to have passed to her husband information about Russian military personnel receiving treatment in her hospital, with this supposedly passed on to Ukraine’s Security Service “during telephone conversations” [!]
Oleksandr Ryzhkov was sentenced to 18 years’ maximum-security [“harsh-regime”] imprisonment; Iryna – to 16 years in a medium-security prison colony, where the conditions are still horrific.
Whether there really was a ‘trial’, or simply a date on which ‘sentence was passed’ for Russian propaganda channels is never really clear. Here Iryna Ryzhkova turned her back on the propagandist asking if the couple “admitted guilt” but did answer “no”. Oleksandr Ryzhkov said that he was innocent and demonstratively made the sign of the Ukrainian trident.