The Russians sentenced the abducted journalist Irina Levchenko to 15 years in prison
The occupying “Zaporizhzhia Regional Court” sentenced Iryna Levchenko, a journalist from Melitopol, to 15 years in prison. Russian occupiers abducted the journalist back in 2023. She has been held captive in Russia ever since.
According to the Russians, after the occupation of Melitopol, the journalist did not leave the city and did not renounce her Ukrainian citizenship.
“After contacting a resident of territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces via the Telegram messaging app, the woman agreed to assist the Ukrainian special services by providing information on the locations of administrative buildings and employees of Russian government agencies, as well as the routes of movement for personnel, military equipment, and weapons of the Russian Armed Forces, other troops, and military formations in the Zaporizhzhia region,” the Institute of Mass Information quotes a post from pro-occupation public groups.
According to information from the occupation court cited in the media, in February 2023, the woman allegedly provided information about Russian government ministries and agencies—including law enforcement agencies—along with addresses and lists of employees. “The transfer of this information to the Ukrainian side could have led to artillery strikes on the locations of these strategic objects,” the occupying “court” asserts. The occupiers claim that Levchenko did not delete this data from her phone.
The Russians accused her of espionage—Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the transmission, collection, or storage for the purpose of transmitting to the enemy information that can be used against the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).
The so-called Zaporizhzhia Regional Court found the former journalist guilty of the crime and sentenced her to 15 years in prison.
The occupiers abducted Iryna Levchenko along with her husband, Oleksandr, in early May 2023 in the temporarily occupied city of Melitopol and held both of them in the city’s basements for some time. The couple was detained on the street; they were initially held together but were later separated.
According to Levchenko’s sister, Olena Rudenko, the journalist was held in the Donetsk pretrial detention center in a cell measuring approximately 3 by 4 meters along with three other women.
In June 2026, it became known that Iryna Levchenko had been transferred from the Simferopol Pretrial Detention Center to the Krasnodar Pretrial Detention Center (Russian Federation).
According to RIA South, Oleksandr Levchenko was released in August 2024. He had been held in occupied Melitopol the entire time. Upon his release, he was given a document stating that he had allegedly served 21 days of administrative detention for “violating curfew.” His passport, bank cards, and money, which had been seized during a search, were not returned to him. During his entire time in detention, he saw his wife only once—during a walk in the pretrial detention center—but they were not allowed to speak.
According to IMI, Iryna Levchenko has been a journalist since 1981. She worked for factory newsletters and the Melitopol regional newspaper “Novyi Den,” and served as a correspondent for regional and national print publications.
The relevant decision was published on pro-Russian social media accounts, Ukrinform reports.
A 15-year-old schoolgirl in Russia was sentenced to 7 years in prison for setting a gas station on fire.
Earlier, the Russian occupation authorities sentenced a 24-year-old resident of the Donetsk region to 14 years in a maximum-security prison for allegedly passing information to Ukrainian intelligence about the location of Russian troops in the Donetsk region.
Previously, two residents of the Kramatorsk district were found guilty of treason and sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Andriy Gulak, a 61-year-old resident of the Donetsk region, to 5 years and 4 months in prison. The Russian side accused the man of allegedly participating in a terrorist group due to his service in the “Azov” regiment.
