A resident of the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region was sentenced to 14 years in prison for “treason” for purchasing Ukrainian war bonds

The Zaporizhzhia Regional Court, established by the Russian authorities, sentenced a 66-year-old resident of the village of Lyubimovka in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine to 14 years in a general regime penal colony. She was accused of treason for purchasing 102 Ukrainian war bonds for a total of 270,000 rubles through the Ukrainian government services app “Diya,” the Russian court’s press service reported.

The case file states that the woman harbored “hostility toward the current Russian government.”

On April 22, a court hearing was held in the case of Larisa Belyaeva. The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation reported Belyaeva’s arrest in August 2025. She had been held in a pretrial detention center in Donetsk since at least July of that year. According to social media information cited by human rights activists, Belyaeva worked as a doctor at the Mykhailivka Medical and Social Assistance Center.

Russia has occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region since the first days of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is located in the occupied zone, but Russia does not control the regional capital, Zaporizhzhia, or the surrounding districts. Russian occupation authorities have declared Melitopol the “capital” of the region. In September 2022, after a sham “referendum” on joining Russia, Russian authorities signed an agreement “incorporating” the region into Russia.

Earlier, a Russian court in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region sentenced two residents of occupied Energodar to 14 years in a general regime penal colony on a similar charge of treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code) for transfers to the Ukrainian army. The first transferred over 12,000 rubles from her account “to accounts in a foreign bank used by Ukrainian special services” via a mobile app, while the second transferred around 6,000 rubles via a mobile app.