Halya Coynash
Russia nay well be creating bank accounts to catch patriotic Ukrainians on occupied territory and then fabricate surreal charges
Photo from the puppet ’court’ posted by the occupation ’Investigative committee’
A young woman from occupied Luhansk oblast has been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment on insane ‘terrorism and extremism’ charges based solely on alleged donations to a regiment of Ukraine’s Armed Forces and to an organization that no longer even exists. This is the latest of multiple abductions and ‘trials’ of Ukrainians, some of whom were underage when they made donations to a regiment defending their native Ukraine.
It is disturbingly unclear why Russia’s ‘Investigative Committee’ and all propaganda media sources have reported the sentence, posting photos of the young woman in ‘court’, but not revealing her name.
The young woman is from Starobilsk raion and was abducted from her home in June 2024. The occupation ‘investigators’ claimed that she had made ten money transfers to the bank cards of the Ukrainian Armed Forces ‘Azov Regiment’ and the Ukrainian nationalist organization ‘Right Sector’ from January to April 2024. Russia has already staged several ‘trials’ over donations to regiments or battalions within Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Donations to ‘Azov’ are a particular favourite as Russia can then use ‘terrorism’ charges based solely on a politically motivated ruling by Russia’s supreme court in August 2022 claiming the regiment of Ukraine’s Army to be ‘terrorist’. The inclusion here of charges related to alleged donations to Right Sector is less typical and rather strange. Russia began demonising this Ukrainian nationalist organization during the Euromaidan protests and used claims of involvement in it as part of their first ‘trials’ of Ukrainian political prisoners. Although the organization did form a volunteer battalion to defend Ukraine during the first years of the war in Donbas, this was later integrated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is possible that Russia’s FSB have themselves organized apparent bank accounts for donations as a means of catching patriotic Ukrainians on occupied territory.
The charges against the young woman were based solely on the flawed rulings declaring the Azov Regiment ‘terrorist’ and Right Sector ‘extremist’. For donations to soldiers defending their country, she was accused of ‘financing terrorist activities’ under Article 205.1 § 1.1 of Russia’s criminal code), The alleged donations to Right Sector served as pretext for claiming that she had ‘financed extremist activities’ (Article 282.3 § 1).
The young woman was, almost certainly, held incommunicado and not given access to an independent lawyer. It is also unclear when the FSB even admitted to holding her, with the period before a person is officially recognized as in custody especially dangerous, as the FSB typically use torture and threats of such to extract ‘confessions’. Although there would be nothing wrong in any case with donations to Azov and Right Sector, the fact that Russia laid surreal and serious criminal charges means that the young woman’s alleged ‘confession’ was undoubtedly obtained under duress.
**Valeriy Koziuberda** (b. 25 October 2005) is also in custody, and facing a similar sentence on charges of ‘financing terrorism’. Valeriy is still only 19 and is charged over a single donation to the Azov Regiment in 2022 when he was 17.
He is recognized as a political prisoner by the Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project, as is **Ivan Semykoz** (see [Russia sentences Ukrainian to 8.5 years for donation as a teenager to Ukraine’s Azov Regiment](https://khpg.org/en/1608814410)).