Irina Navalnaia

She lived in Mariupol (Ukraine). In May 2022, she left for Donetsk (the capital of the self-proclaimed DPR) and then to the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. During the evacuation from Mariupol, she was subjected to abuse and threats. In August, she returned to Mariupol to visit her grandmother and pick up her documents. On 27 September 2022, the day on which the self-proclaimed DPR joined the Russian Federation, she was detained and then taken to Donetsk. At the trial, Navalnaia said that she had been tortured. She was charged with planning to commit a terrorist act at one of the polling stations. According to her, before taking her home for investigation, she was told to “point her finger at a cupboard” and say that she had explosives there. Navalnaia believes that the secret services became interested in her because her stepfather was a member of the Azov Brigade (he was captured) and because records of her might have been present at the local police station (she was trying to get a job there); she also believes that she might have been chosen as a target because she often went to the beach past the place where she was detained on 27 September 2022. Navalnaia also said that after she was taken into custody, she refused to communicate with journalists who came to the detention centre, she was beaten and “sent to the basement where prisoners of war were held”.
Navalnaia was charged under articles on attempted terrorist acts and possession of explosives by a group of persons, but the court reclassified the charges, removing the charges of offences committed by a group of persons. On 7 October 2024, the Mariupol resident was sentenced to 8 years in a general regime colony.

You can read more about politically persecuted people in the Telegram channel OVD-Info LIVE and our politically motivated criminal prosecutions in Russia database