Russian invaders abduct young Ukrainian, sentence her to 12.5 years for helping Ukraine

Archived version

Almost nothing is known about Darya Pavlova, the latest victim of the mass ‘treason trials’ which Russia is staging against Ukrainians abducted from occupied Ukraine. It is reported only that the young woman, who is from occupied Henichesk raion (Kherson oblast), is now 26. Judging by the indictment, she may well have been abducted by the Russian invaders of her homeland when she was just 24 and, almost certainly held incommunicado, before a fake ‘trial’ was played out at the occupation ‘Kherson regional court’.

The Russian occupation ‘prosecutor’ reported this illegitimate ‘court’s’ sentence on 24 July 2025,, stating that Darya Pavlova had been found ‘guilty’ of treason, under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code and sentenced to twelve and a half years’ medium-security imprisonment, as well as to a subsequent period of two years’ restricted liberty.

The young Ukrainian was referred to only as “a local resident”, with the fact that Russia has made it impossible to live on occupied territory without taking Russian citizenship used as excuse for accusing her, as a supposed ‘Russian’, of ‘treason’ towards the aggressor state.

...

On 20 December 2024, the human rights initiative Pyervy Otdel reported that Russia had charged (and convicted, in all cases) 792 people with ‘state treason’ since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There had, In 2024 alone, been over 359 convictions, with the sharp escalation almost certain to be repeated in 2025.

Of the known convictions, 201 had been of Ukrainians from occupied territory, with this almost a third of all cases. That number may, in fact, be higher, as Russia is forcing Ukrainians to take Russian citizenship and calling them all ‘Russians’, with this making it harder to obtain full statistics.

...