Russian invaders abduct young Ukrainian, sentence her to 12.5 years for helping Ukraine

28.07.2025

Halya Coynash

By the end of 2024, almost a third of the massive number of Russian 'treason' convictions were against Ukrainians living on Ukrainian territory, but forced by the invading state to take its citizenship

Occupation ’’operatives’ probably hunting down someone with pro-Ukrainian views

Occupation ’’operatives’ probably hunting down someone for pro-Ukrainian views

Almost nothing is known about Darya Pavlova, the latest victim of the mass ‘treason trials’ which Russia is staging against Ukrainians abducted from occupied Ukraine. It is reported only that the young woman, who is from occupied Henichesk raion (Kherson oblast), is now 26. Judging by the indictment, she may well have been abducted by the Russian invaders of her homeland when she was just 24 and, almost certainly held incommunicado, before a fake ‘trial’ was played out at the occupation ‘Kherson regional court’.

The Russian occupation ‘prosecutor’ reported this illegitimate ‘court’s’ sentence on 24 July 2025,, stating that Darya Pavlova had been found ‘guilty’ of treason, under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code and sentenced to twelve and a half years’ medium-security imprisonment, as well as to a subsequent period of two years’ restricted liberty.

The young Ukrainian was referred to only as “a local resident”, with the fact that Russia has made it impossible to live on occupied territory without taking Russian citizenship used as excuse for accusing her, as a supposed ‘Russian’, of ‘treason’ towards the aggressor state.

It was claimed that Pavlova established contact with an officer of Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU] and, from May through August 2023 while in occupied Henichesk raion, gathered information about places of deployment of Russian military technology and personnel. She had then, purportedly, passed this on, via Messenger, to Ukraine’s Military Intelligence. Here, as in virtually all such cases, the sentence is copy-pasted that the information could have been used to carry out strikes on the places of deployment “of Russian military and other individuals.”

This could mean that Pavlova has been in Russian captivity since soon after August 2023. It is also possible that the young woman was seized, perhaps for pro-Ukrainian views, and the FSB then found some kind of correspondence while scouring her telephone. There is no need for any proof that the recipient was, indeed, from the SBU or Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, or, indeed, that there was any correspondence, since any hearings will have taken place behind closed doors on occupied territory, without free media, international observers and with minimal chance that Darya even had an independent lawyer. ‘The case’ was reported as having been passed to the occupation ‘court’ in March 2025, with there typically no further information, until news of the sentence.

On 20 December 2024, the human rights initiative Pyervy Otdel reported that Russia had charged (and convicted, in all cases) 792 people with ‘state treason’ since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There had, In 2024 alone, been over 359 convictions, with the sharp escalation almost certain to be repeated in 2025.

Of the known convictions, 201 had been of Ukrainians from occupied territory, with this almost a third of all cases. That number may, in fact, be higher, as Russia is forcing Ukrainians to take Russian citizenship and calling them all ‘Russians’, with this making it harder to obtain full statistics.

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Russia sentences Sevastopol man to 17 years amid massive increase in surreal ‘treason trials'

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Russia rubberstamps 15-year ‘treason’ sentence against 58-year-old Crimean activist Oksana Senedzhuk

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Russia’s most savage sentence yet against 66-year-old Ukrainian woman from occupied Crimea

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Crimean abducted by Russian FSB after returning to see her dying mother sentenced to 17 years for a donation

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