Human rights defenders identified six people involved in persecution of journalist Hennadii Osmak
The Crimean Human Rights Group (CHRG) has identified six officials within Russia’s occupation apparatus involved in the illegitimate criminal prosecution of Hennadii Osmak, a journalist from the occupied city of Henichesk. CHRG reported the findings, with details recorded in the “Crimean Cases” database.
Hennadii Osmak. Photo credit: Novyi VizytOn 12 August 2024, Kyrylo Sievastianov (Kirill Sevastianov), a judge at the Russian-controlled Henichesk District Court in the occupied Kherson Region (Oblast), found Osmak guilty under Article 208(2) of Russia’s Criminal Code and sentenced him to three years and two months’ imprisonment. He was to serve one year in prison and the remainder in a strict-regime penal colony.
On 30 January 2025, Oleksii Pushnoi (Aleksei Pushnoi), a judge at the Russian-controlled Novotroitske Interdistrict Court in the occupied Kherson Oblast, upheld the conviction and sentence.
On 11 December that year, Nikolai Riabov, a judge at Russia’s Second Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction in Moscow, also upheld the ruling.
Osmak spent more than a year in a pre-trial detention centre near the village of Chonhar, in the occupied Kherson Oblast, where his family could deliver medication for his diabetes and serious spinal problems.
He is now held in strict-regime penal colony No. 6 in Melekhovo, a settlement in Russia’s Vladimir Oblast. According to a source, his personal belongings and medication were confiscated when he arrived at the colony. The Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre also published information about where the journalist was being held.
In the “Crimean Cases” database, the Crimean Human Rights Group lists six people involved in Osmak’s persecution:
- K. S. Grishin, Mariia Kireeva and I. S. Glazunov;
- state prosecutors;
- Oleksii Pushnoi;
- Kyrylo Sievastianov;
- Nikolai Riabov.
Before the full-scale invasion, Osmak had spent many years as editor-in-chief of Novyi Vizyt, a news outlet in Henichesk, Kherson Oblast. The outlet stopped operating after the full-scale war began, and on 12 March 2022, Osmak announced its closure and an end to his creative work. Contact with him was lost after that.
On 6 March 2024, Russian occupying forces detained Osmak in the Kherson region. He was accused of “participating in an illegal armed formation”. Russian propaganda outlets claimed that he had worked as an “in-house PR officer” for the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion, which Russia has designated a “terrorist organisation”, and had supported the blockade of water supplies to occupied Crimea. Russian security forces also said they were investigating his “possible links to the Security Service of Ukraine”.
ZMINA previously told the story of the journalist from Henichesk. Following his detention, Osmak was subjected to electric shocks, kept in cold conditions and doused with water. According to a source, he also suffered physical and psychological abuse during his three-day transfer to Simferopol, in temporarily occupied Crimea.
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