A court in Russian-occupied Berdyansk has sentenced a pensioner to 14 years in a penal colony for financially supporting Ukraine's armed forces, according to Mediazona. The woman, born in 1952, transferred 1,500 hryvnias ($33.63, or 3,383 rubles at the Central Bank's exchange rate) to the Ukrainian military.
According to investigators, after the start of the war the pensioner developed "a persistently negative attitude toward representatives of Russian state authorities." In 2024, she transferred the money to Ukrainian soldiers via a mobile app of a Ukrainian bank. Security services concluded the transfer had damaged Russia's security.
The Zaporizhzhia Regional Court said the defendant had received Russian citizenship in 2023. She was convicted on treason charges.
Treason and espionage cases have become one of the most common forms of political persecution in Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to calculations by First Department, in the first quarter of 2026 the number of treason cases submitted to courts exceeded 2025 figures by 20%.
In 2025, 468 people were convicted in Russia on treason and espionage charges — a historic high since 1997, when the Criminal Code came into force, according to a report by the Parubets Analytics association commissioned by First Department. Since the start of the war, 1,006 people have been convicted under these articles. Over the entire period from 1997 to February 24, 2022, courts issued only 196 such rulings.