A resident of Kherson region convicted of espionage has been transferred to a penal colony in Mordovia.

Kherson region activist Iryna Horobtsova, convicted on espionage charges (under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code), has been transferred to Penal Colony No. 2 in Yavas, Mordovia. This was reported by “Graty.”

On 15 August 2024, Iryna Horobtsova was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in a general regime penal colony by the Kherson Regional Court, set up by the Russian authorities, under charges of espionage. “She spent a year collecting strategically important data about Russian Armed Forces units in Kherson region and transmitting it to an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine. This information could have been used to carry out targeted strikes on locations of Russian Armed Forces,” the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office wrote. On 1 April 2025, the First General Jurisdiction Court of Appeal in Moscow upheld the verdict.

On 13 May 2022, according to Horobtsova’s relatives, the volunteer was taken from her home by armed men in military uniforms and masks. In June 2022, her father received a response from the FSB stating that “the individual in question obstructed the special military operation” and that therefore a “decision regarding her” would be made “after the end of the special military operation.”

Later, it became known that Horobtsova had been taken to Crimea. In October 2022, lawyer Emil Kurbedinov told “Graty” that the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed him the woman was being held in pre-trial detention centre No. 1 in Simferopol, Crimea’s main city, whereas the staff at the detention centre refused to let him visit his client, claiming she was not held there. According to information provided to the lawyer by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Horobtsova’s fingerprints had been taken in Detention Centre No. 1 as early as 29 May. In autumn 2022, her parents received a letter from her from this detention centre. It’s also known that in October 2022, the activist was moved to Detention Centre No. 2 in Simferopol. At that time, both her lawyer and family said that no formal charges had been laid against her.

In detention, Horobtsova lost 20 kilograms. In addition, she frequently suffers from headaches and was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. “Doctors are only called after persistent requests, so access to medical care is very limited,” her father said.