Kherson activist Iryna Horobtsova turned 39 on May 13. Two of them are women who are illegally in Russian captivity.
Before the full-scale invasion, Iryna Horobtsova worked in an IT company. After February 24, she started volunteering and published on social networks in support of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, publicly condemning the Russian invasion and occupation of Kherson.
Iryna’s page was last updated on May 11, 2022. Then she published an image with a call to save Azovstal.
On May 13, 2022, the Russian military came to the house where the woman lived at the time. During the search, they took all the equipment and her mobile phone, and the woman herself was taken to an unknown direction.
After the abduction, Iryna’s parents began to contact the occupation authorities, which is how they learned that the woman had been taken to Crimea.
For some time, the exact location of the woman was unknown, until the Crimean human rights defender, who was contacted by the relatives of Iryna Horobtsova, learned that she was in the Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol.
The woman’s parents tried to contact her through the Russian service “Zonatelecom”, which provides communication services with the convict. They sent a letter to Irina, to which she replied and said that she was feeling well, and also asked to hand over some things. However, it is not known for certain whether Iryna really answered the letter.
It was not clear what exactly the woman was detained for, because the law enforcement agencies of the occupied Crimea did not announce the suspicion to her.
Later, lawyer Emil Kurbedinov learned from the Russian FSB that Horobtsova allegedly opposed the so-called “Special Military Operation “SVO”, for which she was detained.
The Russians did not provide detailed information about the woman’s state of health, and it was impossible to get to the detention center where the citizen of Kherson was.
In the fall of 2022, Crimean human rights defenders learned that an isolation ward was opened on the territory of the strict-regime correctional colony No. 1 in the city of Simferopol specifically for Ukrainian citizens who were detained in the territory captured by the Russian army after a full-scale invasion. Iryna Horobtsova was transferred to this detention center No. 2.
For half a year, Irina’s lawyer Emil Kurbedinov tried to get to her for a personal meeting, but he was refused, referring to the fact that “they don’t have such a person and never had.”
In December 2022, Kurbedinov told the public human rights organization “ZMINA Human Rights Center” that, according to his information, Iryna Horobtsova was kept in solitary confinement and in complete isolation from the outside world for two months in order to break her psychologically. According to him, Horobtsova did not even know that she had a lawyer.
In April of this year, it became known that law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation initiated criminal proceedings against Iryna Horobtsova. The woman was charged under Art. 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – espionage.
There is still no information about Iryna’s physical and psychological condition, nor is it known in what conditions she is being held.
According to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets, as of December 2023, 28,000 Ukrainian civilians are in Russian captivity.