In Crimea, a 58-year-old woman sentenced to 15 years in prison for “high treason”

A Russian court in occupied Sevastopol has sentenced 58-year-old Oksana Senedzhuk to 15 years in prison for high treason, Suspilne reported. According to the prosecution, Senedzhuk “took pictures of the Black Sea Fleet ships and passed these pictures to Ukrainian intelligence”.

According to Suspilne, Senedzhuk worked at the Research Institute of Urban Planning and Architecture, and before the annexation of Crimea by Russia, at the department of internal policy of the Sevastopol City Administration. She took part in the Orange Revolution of 2004-2005 and the Euromaidan of 2013-2014 and has never concealed her loyalty to the Ukrainian state, including openly condemning Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

Senedzhuk and her husband wanted to leave Crimea after the annexation but had to stay because of their elderly mothers who refused to leave the peninsula. The couple’s daughter and human rights activists believe that the reason for the arrest and imprisonment was Senedzhuk’s political views.

According to Senedzhuk’s daughter Maria Kostiuk, the FSB summoned her mother for interrogation several times before her arrest. In the autumn of 2023, FSB officers came to the Senedzhuks’ home to search it, seizing laptops and mobile phones. In August 2024, they came again. Oksana Senedzhuk was at work at the time and was arrested there.

She was sentenced on 26 December at a closed “court” session. The family is going to appeal, but they only expect the woman to be released as part of a prisoner exchange.

“A sentence of 15 years is terrible because, at this age and state of health, it is extremely difficult to endure such a punishment in Russian prisons,” Olga Skrypnyk, head of the Crimean Human Rights Group, said in a comment to Suspilne.

According to Skrypnyk’s observations, the FSB began to systematically target people who took part in the revolutionary events of 2013-2014 in Ukraine. According to Oksana Senedzhuk’s daughter, cited by Suspilne, there were six other “suspects” of “high treason” in a cell with her mother in a detention centre.