Thousands of Ukrainians are serving time in prison for allegedly collaborating with Russia. One such prisoner, Tetyana Potapenko, recently spoke to British reporters and insisted she should not be there because she had not done what the state accused her of. She is one of 62 Ukrainians imprisoned in Dnipro, near the Donbas front line and the town of Lyman, which was occupied by Russia for six months in 2022.
Prosecutors accused her of handing out relief supplies to local people and was, therefore, acting as an agent of the occupying Russians. She vehemently denies any wrongdoing and said she has volunteered to help needy people for 15 years, adding, “I could not leave those old people. I grew up among them.”
In March 2022, Ukrainian lawmakers passed new legislation making aiding or cooperating with Russia a criminal offense. The definition of collaboration includes public denial of the armed aggression against Ukraine, public calls for support of Russia, or refusal to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty “over the temporarily occupied territories.”
Tetiana Potapenko is one of two women serving sentences in Dnipro for continuing in voluntary roles after the arrival of Russian forces. Valentyna Tkach is a 63-year-old long-term volunteer who gave food to elderly neighbors who refused to leave the area when the war broke out. She eventually received notice that she was accused of “occupying a leadership position in the occupation administration” – a crime that carries a potential ten-year prison term.
Both women believe they did nothing wrong except help their neighbors, but Ukrainian security services said they had contributed to the “spread of the Kremlin regime.”
Elsewhere, other Ukrainians are receiving hefty prison sentences, including men accused of passing information or sympathizing with Russian forces. Last year, the United Nations said Ukraine had prosecuted 6,600 people since February 2022, a figure that has risen to more than 8,000 in February this year. Most of those charged said their intentions had been misinterpreted and that they had been pressured into signing confessions. Others, however, admitted that they did, in fact, sympathize with Russia and accused the Ukrainian government of instituting domestic “fascism.”
