The Russians have again transported the political prisoner from Kherson, Iryna Horobtsova, to Mordovia. After consideration of the cassation appeal in Moscow, which the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rejected, leaving the unlawful sentence unchanged, the woman was sent to serve her sentence in Colony No. 2 in the settlement of Yavas.
This was reported by Suspilne with reference to the human rights project «Memorial PZK».
On September 10, the Supreme Court of Russia considered the cassation appeal in the case of Horobtsova, whom the occupying authorities sentenced to 10.5 years in prison on fabricated charges of “spying.” Despite the obvious absurdity of the case, the sentence was left in force.
Now Iryna will serve her sentence in a maximum-security colony in the settlement of Yavas in Mordovia.
Iryna’s father, Volodymyr Horobtsov, said that his daughter took the court’s decision hard. She wrote that it is a titanium wall that cannot be destroyed.
According to him, conditions in the colony are extremely harsh. The women there work like slaves, it is a real penal servitude — hard labor, strict rules, constant humiliation. Iryna has heart problems and headaches; an aneurysm in her brain was previously detected, and this is very dangerous. The family supports Iryna through letters and parcels.
As early as February the political prisoner appealed in a letter to the Coordination Headquarters, the SBU, the President’s Office, the National Information Bureau, and the ombudsman asking for the rescue of all civilian women held in Russian prisons. In it she wrote that this is their SOS signal, and they want to be heard, since they have been waiting too long for an opportunity to draw attention to their plight.
Before the full-scale invasion, Iryna Horobtsova worked in IT, and after it began she became an activist. The woman also posted messages on social networks in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The Russians abducted Horobtsova on May 13, 2022. Initially the woman was held in the Kherson pre-trial detention center, where she was seen by the mayor of Hola Prystan, Oleksandr Babych, then she was moved to Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol.
The Russian Federation did not bring any charges against Iryna for almost two years. She also could not correspond with relatives or receive parcels from them. The woman’s case was classified and the hearings were closed to even her lawyers.
In April 2024 the woman was accused of espionage and a few months later was illegally sentenced to 10.5 years imprisonment in a general regime correctional colony. The Russians claim that Horobtsova allegedly collected and passed to Ukrainian intelligence information in 2022 – 2023 about the locations, times, and routes of movement of Russian military personnel in the Kherson region.
It later became known that the Russians forced Horobtsova to sign a “confession”.