Courts in occupied Ukraine have issued 190 convictions for ‘treason’ and ‘espionage’

Over the past three years, courts in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions have issued at least 190 convictions for “treason,” “espionage,” or “confidential cooperation with a foreign state,” according to an investigation by iStories.

Those imprisoned under these charges are people who opposed the occupation and were abducted by Russian security forces. About two-thirds of the convictions are for “espionage.” In Russia, that charge is typically used against foreign nationals; in the annexed territories, it’s applied to Ukrainian citizens. The “treason” charge, meanwhile, targets people who were forcibly issued Russian passports. Human rights groups say that, in practice, even Ukrainians without Russian citizenship are accused of “treason,” despite this being illegal under Russian law. Some dual citizens of Russia and Ukraine have been prosecuted under both articles simultaneously.

Ukrainians convicted of “espionage” in the occupied territories receive an average sentence of 13.3 years, while those convicted of “treason” get about 13.8 years. At least two people have been sentenced to life in prison.

More than a quarter (28 percent) of those convicted are women. At least eight are teenagers. Publicly available data also show that five people prosecuted under these charges have died in captivity.