The child's father, Maxim, said Lera died in the morning of the day after she was allowed home for the first time since birth, where he had set up a palliative care room for her.
Alexandra Strilets and her mother, Victoria, were detained in spring 2024. According to the investigation, Alexandra "decided to conduct confidential cooperation with representatives of Ukraine against the security of the Russian Federation for remuneration" and brought her mother into it. Victoria, the prosecution alleges, took photographs of Russian military facilities, which Alexandra handed over to a channel controlled by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Defense Ministry.
The Criminal Code allows a mother's sentence to be deferred until her child turns 14. Alexandra Strilets has two children: the elder daughter was born in 2020, and the younger, Lera, was born in March 2025 at 27 weeks of pregnancy, 30 centimeters tall and weighing 530 grams.
From birth the girl was diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia and was on artificial lung ventilation. According to Alexandra, during her time in the pretrial detention center her daughter underwent lung surgery, had a hernia removed and had eye surgery. The girl later suffered cardiac arrest, and by her first year she had gained weight only to 4 kilograms.
Lera was scheduled for surgery on August 6, 2025. The day before, the Sevastopol City Court, having heard the case in a single session, sentenced Alexandra and Victoria to 12 years in a penal colony under the article on state treason. Both were taken into custody in the courtroom.
The defense asked to defer execution of the sentence and provided medical documents on the need for the mother's constant presence. Judge Daniil Zemlyukov rejected the request, noting that the child has a father. On January 21, the Third Appellate Court of General Jurisdiction, at an off-site hearing in Simferopol, left the sentence unchanged, after which Alexandra Strilets was transferred to a colony in Chuvashia.
"Somewhere inside there is a glimmer of faith that I will be given a deferral. The lawyer has collected a pile of certificates and once again received a document from the hospital stating that the mother's presence is necessary," Alexandra wrote before the appeal. According to her, she feared she would not survive the separation from her children.
Memorial recognized Alexandra Strilets and her mother Victoria as political prisoners. The representative office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea called the detention and the sentence an example of resistance in Crimea to Russian aggression. Appeals to the human rights commissioner and other authorities went unanswered. The Russian authorities have not commented on information about the girl's death.