A postal worker from Crimea has been sentenced to compulsory labour in a case concerning the “discrediting” of the Russian Armed Forces.

Irina Vladimirova, a 62-year-old resident of Russian-occupied Crimea working as a postal worker in Feodosia (a town on the Crimean peninsula), has been sentenced to one year and eight months of compulsory labour under the article on “discrediting” the Russian armed forces (part 1, Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code). This was reported to OVD-Info by the press service of the Feodosia City Court. The sentence was handed down on 14 August.

According to the press service, the case against Vladimirova was triggered by her posts online, but the court did not specify where they were published or what they said.

In addition to compulsory labour, the postal worker was given a two-year ban on internet activity.

In July, it became known that Irina Vladimirova was also accused of public calls for extremist activity online (part 2, Article 280 of the Criminal Code). The verdict in this case has not yet been delivered.

According to the investigation, in 2023 the woman posted “calls for violent acts against a group of people based on their origin” on social media.

Previously, she had been fined twice under the administrative article on “discrediting” the Russian military (part 1, Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences), and once under the article on “inciting hatred or enmity” (part 1, Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences). The total sum of fines was 70,000 roubles (about US$770). The grounds for all three cases were posts and comments on social media.

Irina Vladimirova was first prosecuted in April 2022. According to the court, she published a post on Odnoklassniki in which she “expressed disagreement” with the war in Ukraine.

The second fine was imposed after she posted comments in Ukrainian on channels called “Chat with Radik” and “Brati Yakovlevi Chat.” One of them read: “Ukrainian drones should strike civilian sites in Russia as well. Because until that happens, they will revel in the grief and suffering of Ukrainians. Their civilian sites are military sites, their little houses too, Russian terrorists, recognised as such by the world, hide there.”

In another message, Vladimirova noted: “We [Ukrainians and Russians] are in fact almost the same. One ‘but’… They [Russians] attacked and kill.” The postal worker did not attend either hearing.

The third case under the article on “inciting hatred” stemmed from a comment on Telegram allegedly “expressing a negative opinion about a group of people based on nationality, language, and origin.” The message was posted under a post about a Russian soldier wounded in action who was “a Buryat by nationality.”

In this case, the woman did not admit guilt. She stated that she had not published the comment and that “her phone is often left unattended at her workplace.”

“Perhaps someone else wrote this message in the chat,” said the Feodosia resident.

• Crimean propagandist Aleksandr Talipov also posted a video featuring Irina Vladimirova after her arrest in November 2024. The woman apologised for “insulting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”
• At the beginning of July this year, Rosfinmonitoring placed Irina Vladimirova on the “terrorists and extremists” list.