A woman from Mykolaiv was sentenced to 6 years for posts about mobilization

The Berezivka District Court of Odesa Oblast sentenced a resident of Mykolaiv to six years in prison with confiscation of property. She was found guilty of obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and distributing materials that the court deemed to justify Russian armed aggression.

Intent learned of this from the court’s verdict.

According to the case file, the woman administered a publicly accessible Telegram channel where information was posted about the locations and times of mobilization events in Mykolaiv. At the time she began administering the channel, it had 337 subscribers.

As the court established, between January and March 2024, the defendant moderated the community, monitored posts, and deleted messages that were off-topic. In addition, she herself posted messages about the locations of military personnel conducting mobilization activities. In total, the court identified at least 20 such text and image posts.

On March 5, 2024, the woman also published a post urging men to avoid locations where mobilization activities were taking place, not to go out alone, and to carry means of self-defense.

Separately, the court examined posts which, in its conclusion, contained justifications for Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine. The verdict also mentions the defendant’s Telegram correspondence with an unidentified representative of the aggressor state. The court concluded that the woman was aware of who she was communicating with.

The defendant did not admit guilt. She claimed that she had no intention of obstructing the activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and that her posts concerned the conduct of TCC representatives during what she considered to be illegal actions. The court rejected these arguments and found the evidence gathered to be sufficient for a guilty verdict.

For obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during a state of emergency, the court sentenced the woman to five years in prison, and for disseminating materials justifying Russian aggression, to six years with confiscation of property. For the aggregate of criminal offenses, the final sentence is six years in prison with confiscation of property.

The time spent in pretrial detention from March 27, 2024, through June 25, 2026, inclusive, was credited toward the sentence on a day-for-day basis. Until the verdict becomes final, the pretrial measure in the form of bail remains unchanged. The verdict may be appealed to the Odesa Court of Appeals within 30 days of the date of its pronouncement.

Андрій Колісніченко