Former Kherson colony official acquitted after two years in custody

The court acquitted the former head of the department of social, educational and psychological work of the Northern Correctional Colony No. 90 Oksana Mintseva in the case of collaborationism.

This was reported by Court Reporter.

The investigation alleged that during the occupation of Kherson, the woman allegedly agreed to work in the structure of the occupation administration, taking the position of the so-called senior inspector of the department for the control of the execution of sentences in the occupation department of the penitentiary service of the Kherson region.

The key evidence of the prosecution was a recording of a telephone conversation of May 9, 2022 between the then head of the colony Yevhen Sobolev and Mintseva, intercepted by the SBU. In the conversation, Sobolev asked her if she was ready to stay on and offered to temporarily take over the cases of one of the departments. Mintseva replied that she feared criminal liability, but eventually said she would stay, although she noted that she did not have the relevant experience for a managerial position.

In September 2022, she was notified of suspicion in absence, stating that she had agreed to head the HR department of the colony under the control of the occupiers. After the liberation of Kherson in November 2022, she was put on the wanted list. At the same time, the woman herself explained in court that she was not hiding, lived in Kherson with her family and was undergoing filtration. After learning about the suspicion, she contacted the prosecutor on her own and came to Kyiv for questioning with her young son and mother, after which she was taken into custody.

During the trial, the charges were changed. The investigation abandoned the version that Mintseva was the head of the HR department. It turned out that Sobolev had mistakenly referred not to her, but to another employee, Tropina, to whom he had offered the position.

She pleaded not guilty in court. She explained that before the occupation, she worked in the colony under Ukrainian law and did not receive any instructions on how to act in the conditions of the seizure of the city. According to her, the employees were waiting for evacuation or official orders. The woman confirmed that she had seen representatives of the Russian Federation on the territory of the colony, but she did not participate in any meetings with the occupiers.

The defendant also confirmed the phone conversation with Sobolev, but noted that the next day his deputy said that the call was addressed to another person. Amid rumors about the possible dismissal of all employees of the colony in occupied Kherson, on May 12, 2022, she submitted a resignation letter, worked for two more weeks and officially left the service in late May under Ukrainian law.

After her dismissal, she stayed in the occupied city with her child and mother. According to her, the family lived on savings, part-time tutoring, her parents' pensions and alimony.

The court interrogated only one witness, the former head of the colony's detention center. The witness confirmed that the Russian military had visited the colony, but he knew nothing about any work of the woman in the occupation structures. The prosecution did not provide other witnesses to the court.

The court concluded that the prosecutor had not provided convincing evidence to prove the accused's guilt. Given the lack of evidence, the court found Oksana Mintseva not guilty.

Earlier, in 2024, another judge of the same court found the woman guilty and sentenced her to eight years in prison, but the Court of Appeal overturned this verdict in January 2025 and sent the case for a new trial. The appeal pointed to procedural violations and incomplete analysis of the evidence. In total, she spent about two and a half years in custody.

In early December, the court sentenced a former MP from Kherson region to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property. He became an investigator for the occupiers and spied on his fellow countrymen.

Анна Бальчінос