Russian appeal court upheld sentence against 66-year-old Melitopol resident Iryna Sukhovii

In May 2025, FSB officers detained pensioner Iryna Sukhovii. The illegitimate “Zaporizhzhia Regional Court” subsequently sentenced her to 12 years and six months in a general-regime penal colony for “high treason”. The Russian occupying authorities accused her of providing financial support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In 2026, the First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction in Moscow upheld the sentence and dismissed Sukhovii’s appeal. Aleksandr Pushkin, a judge at the court, issued the ruling, RIA-Pivden reported.

Iryna Sukhovii. Photo credit: RIA-Pivden

When Russian forces occupied Melitopol in February 2022, the woman was living alone in her own house. She received a pension and worked as a chief technologist at a private company. Her only close relative, her sister Tetiana, lives abroad with her husband. Before the occupation began, Sukhovii had already lost her mother, brother and only daughter, who died at the age of ten.

Before her detention, members of Russia’s security services repeatedly searched Sukhovii’s home. A month before she was detained, they seized her mobile phone and documents. After her relatives gave her another phone, FSB officers returned to her home and confiscated it as well.

Sukhovii’s relatives last spoke to her on 12 May 2025. When FSB officers detained her, they told her relatives that they were taking her away “for only five days”, but she never returned home.

Russian investigators allege that in 2023, Sukhovii used a mobile app to set up an automatic transfer of funds in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The case file also states that she “did not support the special military operation”. Sukhovii’s relatives say they do not know what payment the occupation authorities are referring to. Tetiana, Sukhovii’s sister, who lives in Europe with her husband, said the occupation authorities had asked about the money she had sent to Iryna to pay utility bills.

Representatives of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial said that after her detention, Sukhovii was initially held in a pre-trial detention centre in the occupied part of the Donetsk Region (Oblast) and was later transferred to temporarily occupied Simferopol. Information about the criminal case against her became public only after she had been sentenced. In December 2025, the Russia-installed “Zaporizhzhia Regional Court” in the temporarily occupied city of Melitopol sentenced Sukhovii to 12 years and six months in a general-regime penal colony on charges of “high treason”.

“Although the woman had acquired Russian citizenship and had been receiving a Russian pension since November 2023, pension payments continued to be credited to citizen S.’s current account at a Ukrainian bank“, the statement said.

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Russian investigators allege that in 2023, Sukhovii set up an automatic transfer of funds in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and did not cancel it. The Russian prosecutor’s office claims that the transfers totalled more than 1,400 roubles. The occupation authorities have not released any other documents from the case file or information about the proceedings.

“While browsing pro-Ukrainian Telegram channels, S. saw appeals for financial support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, accompanied by bank details. She then used a mobile app to set up an automatic payment from her current account in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine“, Memorial said.

Russian human rights defenders report that “she pleaded guilty in court and expressed remorse”.

At the time of her detention, Iryna Sukhovii had severe swelling in her legs and could barely walk without assistance. In addition, an arm fracture she had sustained before the full-scale invasion had not healed properly.

Tetiana said Iryna’s health had deteriorated while she was held in the pre-trial detention centre.

“My sister wrote in a letter: “Water runs down the walls of the pre-trial detention centre, the bedding is wet, we are all coughing and we are all ill…” At first, Ira did not even have any clothes. Just imagine: it was winter and she was wearing slippers because her legs were so swollen that no shoes would fit her“, Tetiana said.

Sukhovii’s relatives said that she was only given prison clothes and shoes after she was transferred to temporarily occupied Simferopol.

In her letters from prison, Iryna writes that she is worried because she has not received any correspondence.

“Everyone else gets letters every day, but my surname is never called out. It must mean that nobody needs me…”, Tetiana quoted her sister as saying.

Tetiana also said that after Sukhovii’s detention, she and her husband continued paying the utility bills for her flat in Melitopol for some time. Neighbours later told them that unknown people had moved into the property. According to the neighbours, the lights in the flat have remained on constantly ever since. The neighbours themselves subsequently stopped responding.

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ZMINA earlier reported that Maryna Kovalenko, a 58-year-old resident of Luhansk who was abducted by Russian security forces in June 2025, was sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony by the illegitimate “Supreme Court” in temporarily occupied Crimea. Russian investigators allege that she photographed official documents at a music school in Luhansk and passed them to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence. She was held in isolation for more than eight months before being charged.

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