Occupied Berdiansk court jails pensioner for 14 years over €29 donation to Ukraine's army

A Russian-installed court in occupied Berdiansk, referred to as the "Zaporizhzhia regional court," has sentenced a pensioner born in 1952 to 14 years in prison for financially supporting Ukraine's armed forces.

According to investigators, the woman developed a hostile attitude toward representatives of the occupation authorities after Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine began. In 2024, using a Ukrainian bank's mobile app, she transferred 1,500 hryvnia (about €29) to Ukrainian soldiers, which occupation authorities deemed damaging to Russia's security.

The court stated that the defendant had been granted Russian citizenship in 2023, which is why she was tried under the treason statute.

Rising wave of prosecutions

TV channel Current Time notes that since Russia's renewed invasion, treason and espionage charges have become among the most common tools of political persecution. According to the human rights group Pervy Otdel, the number of treason cases referred to Russian courts in the first quarter of 2026 was 20% higher than in the same period of 2025.

In 2025, 468 people were convicted of treason and espionage in Russia — the highest number since 1997, when the country's current criminal code took effect, according to a review by the Parubets Analytics project, prepared for Pervy Otdel. Since February 2022, a total of 1,006 people have been convicted under these statutes, compared with just 196 such verdicts between 1997 and February 24, 2022.