Russians in Crimea jail director of Luhansk art school in penal colony for "treason"

The so-called supreme court in occupied Crimea has sentenced the director of a Luhansk art school to 13 years in a penal colony for "treason".

Source: Ukrainian media outlet ZMINA, citing the Russian prosecutor's office

Details: The case concerns 58-year-old Maryna Kovalenko, whom the Russian prosecutor's office accuses of photographing official documents at the music school in Luhansk and passing them on to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence. She was held in solitary confinement for more than eight months before charges were formally brought.

According to ZMINA, the woman disappeared in Alushta in Crimea on 10 June 2025. She was held in solitary confinement at pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Simferopol for more than eight months without any formal charges being brought. It was only in February that she was transferred to pre-trial detention centre No. 1 in Simferopol. Throughout that time, her relatives had no information about her legal situation or the progress of the case.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) claims that the Security Service of Ukraine had recruited the woman as she crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border. The FSB also claimed that Kovalenko agreed to cooperate because her son serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In June, the FSB released a video of Maryna in which she says she states that she consented to cooperate with Ukrainian intelligence. She was reportedly meant to photograph official orders arriving from Russia and forward them on.

The FSB claims that Maryna collected and passed on information about the activities of scientific, educational and other institutions in the occupied territories of Luhansk Oblast and Crimea, to which she had access. However, in its latest statements, the Russian prosecutor's office stressed that the woman photographed the documents specifically at the school in Luhansk, and that she had travelled to Alushta on holiday.

The occupation court said that Kovalenko had photographed documents containing personal data and official information, which she then allegedly sent to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence.

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