56-year-old Natalia Shulha has been held incommunicado for eight months, with the only 'videoed evidence' obviously faked and probably obtained under duress, if not physical torture
Natalia Shulha From the video circulated by the Russian occupiers
Natalia Shulha From the video circulated by the Russian occupiers
56-year-old Natalia Shulha has been sentenced by a Russian-controlled kangaroo court to 15 years’ imprisonment eight months after she became the latest of many employees of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to be abducted from her home in occupied Enerhodar. The charges against her were both absurd and immensely cynical, with the aggressor state, which has been systematically bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, claiming that Shulha had been part of a Ukrainian ‘plot’ to blow up a power cable.
Natalia Shulha worked as a payroll clerk at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant [ZNPP] which the Russians invaders have been controlling since early March 2022. She was seized by the invaders on 12 June 2024 and has been in Russian captivity ever since. Almost six months after her abduction, on 4 December 2024, the occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional prosecutor announced that her ‘case’ had been passed to the occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’. The Russian report called Shulha “a member of a sabotage group which tried to blow up a power line” and said that she was accused of having joined a ‘sabotage society created by Ukraine’s security service” [SBU] in February 2022.
It was claimed that, in June 2024, Shulha had, on SBU instructions, taken something that she believed to be a homemade explosive device from a hiding place in Enerhodar. This, however, is one of the Russian FSB’s favourite ‘thwarted plot’ genre, with it further asserted that the FSB had known about the device and replaced it with an empty shell. Shulha was purportedly ‘detained’ while trying to attach this empty shell to an electricity pylon.
Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov has pointed out that the only ‘evidence’ provided for this allegation is an evidently faked video, clearly put together from footage videoed in different places and from different angles. Shulha will have been forced to take part in such stunts while held incommunicado, almost certainly without any access to a proper lawyer. There is every reason to assume that any such ‘evidence’ and / or ‘confession’ would have been obtained through torture and other forms of duress. The video posted by the occupiers on 6 March 2025 shows Shulha looking gaunt and drained, with the difference from the pre-abduction photo quite chilling.
Russia is not only in violation of international law through its invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory, but through such abductions of civilians and staging of ‘trials’ under Russian legislation. Shulha was illegally charged with ‘involvement in a sabotage group’ (under Article 281.3 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code); with attempted sabotage (Article 281 § 2, Article 30); trying to illegally obtain, possess, transport, etc. explosive devices (Article 222.1 § 4). All of this was claimed to have been as part of an organized group.
Natalia Shulha is one of an ever-mounting number of employees of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and/or residents of the neighbouring city of Enerhodar whom the Russians have seized. Some have also been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment on spurious charges, others have simply disappeared.
See:
Tetiana Klochko Russia sentences Ukrainian to 12 years on fake Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant ‘terrorism’ charges
Serhiy Korzh, Serhiy Potynh
Huge conveyor belt sentences against Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant engineer, other Ukrainians whom Russia abducted and tortured
Serhiy Spartesny
Ongoing terror as Russia passes grotesque 'sentence' against abducted Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant employee
Oleh Morochkovsky and Dmytro Yevsieliev
Abducted Ukrainians tortured into claiming Ukraine carried out Russia’s attack on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Oleksiy Brazhnyk whose whereabouts remain unknown
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant engineer held and tortured by Russian invaders for over a year