Based on materials from the Security Service of Ukraine, two residents of Stanytsia Luhanska have each been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for collaboration and aiding the occupation authorities. Both convicts are hiding in the temporarily occupied territories, so the verdicts were handed down in absentia.
This was reported by the SBU in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
One of those convicted is a former costume assistant at the local community cultural centre. In September 2022, she voluntarily joined the so-called “territorial election commission of the settlement of Stanytsia Luhanska” and took part in organising a sham referendum on Luhansk region joining the Russian Federation.
The woman compiled voter lists, issued ballot papers, coordinated the work of other commission members, counted votes and drew up the final protocols.
The court found her guilty under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: encroachment on Ukraine’s territorial integrity and inviolability, and collaboration.
The second person convicted worked in the banking sector before the full-scale invasion. After the settlement was occupied, he switched sides to the Russian Federation, and in October 2024 he became head of the so-called “Stanytsia-Luhanska Integrated Centre for Social Services for the Population”.
According to the investigation, in this role the man organised assistance for participants in the so-called “special military operation”, initiated the production of camouflage equipment for Russian troops, and also took part in the “inventory” of local residents’ property for its subsequent appropriation and registration in the Russian Federation’s cadastre.
Both the man and the woman were sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment with confiscation of all property. The sentence will begin to run from the moment of their detention.
The pre-trial investigation was carried out by officers of the SBU’s Main Directorate in Donetsk and Luhansk regions under the procedural supervision of the Luhansk Regional Prosecutor’s Office.