The sentence was announced by the court's press service and by Siberia.Realities. Judge Marsel Dautov handed down the verdict on September 28.

According to the investigation, Malovechkina, a resident of Krasnokamensk, joined the Freedom of Russia Legion remotely in early 2025. The legion is a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces formed from Russian citizens that Russian authorities have designated a terrorist organization. Between March and June of that year, she is alleged to have pasted leaflets bearing the organization's symbols around the city.

The court found that a handler from the legion then offered her money to undergo training and blow up railway tracks in Zabaikalye. Malovechkina agreed, received cryptocurrency and assembled at least two homemade explosive devices, one of them estimated at roughly 5 kg of TNT equivalent.

On August 24, 2025, according to the verdict, she dug a pit between the sleepers on the tracks of the Zabaikalye Railway, planted an explosive device and detonated it. The blast destroyed two reinforced-concrete sleepers and damaged a railcar positioned above the blast site. Malovechkina is said to have admitted guilt.

Along with the prison term, the court fined her more than 2.5 million rubles.

Citing Siberia.Realities, Malovechkina previously worked as a social worker at Dobrota, a rehabilitation center for minors, and as a sales representative at several companies. In 2016 she sought work at an arbitration court, and in 2021 she ran for head of the Soktuy-Milozanskoye rural settlement. According to Rosfinmonitoring, Russia's financial monitoring agency, she was born in Kazakhstan, and in July she was added to the list of "terrorists and extremists." The date of her arrest has not been reported.

Novaya Gazeta noted that 24 years is the longest sentence ever handed to a woman in a state treason case. The previous record was the 22-year sentence given to volunteer Nadin Geisler.

Since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has seen arson attacks on military enlistment offices, administrative buildings and railway relay cabinets. Minors are frequently detained on suspicion of such crimes, with cases opened on charges of sabotage, terrorism and state treason.