Russian occupation authorities sentence abducted Ukrainian journalist Iryna Levchenko to 15 years in prison

Melitopol journalist Iryna Levchenko has been sentenced to 15 years in a penal colony by an occupation court in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Levchenko was unlawfully imprisoned in 2023.

Source: Institute of Mass Information

Details: A statement about the verdict appeared on the occupation court's website and Telegram channel, saying that Ukrainian journalist Iryna Levchenko had been found guilty of alleged "espionage".

The occupation court stated that Iryna Levchenko remained in occupied Melitopol after the start of the full-scale invasion and did not renounce her Ukrainian citizenship.

The occupation authorities claim that "having contacted a resident of territory controlled by Ukraine's armed forces via the Telegram messenger, the woman agreed to assist Ukrainian special services by transmitting data about the locations of office buildings and Russian government officials, movement routes of personnel, military equipment and weapons of Russia's armed forces and other military formations on the territory of Zaporizhzhia Oblast".

According to the occupation authorities, Levchenko allegedly "transmitted information about Russian government ministries and agencies, including those responsible for security and law enforcement, along with their addresses and lists of employees" in February 2023.

"The transmission of said information to the Ukrainian side could have led to strikes on the locations of these strategic facilities," the occupation authorities stated.

In 2023, the occupying forces abducted journalist Iryna Levchenko and her husband in occupied Melitopol and held them in a basement. Levchenko was regularly transported from the Donetsk pre-trial detention centre to occupied Melitopol for investigative actions.

According to RIA Pivden, the journalist's case was completely closed off, and even her lawyer did not have full access to it.

In June 2026, it became known that Iryna Levchenko had been transferred from the Simferopol pre-trial detention centre to the Krasnodar pre-trial detention centre in Russia. According to RIA Pivden, the journalist's husband Oleksandr Levchenko was released in August 2024.

For reference: Iryna Levchenko has been in journalism since 1981. She worked at factory newspapers, the Melitopol district newspaper Novyi Den, and was a local correspondent for oblast and national print publications.

Iryna Levchenko is on the list of civilian journalists in Russian captivity maintained by the Institute of Mass Information.

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