Switch Language

This translation was made by AI

The Azovsky District Court in Omsk region has sentenced 71-year-old Anastasia Gordienko to two years’ suspended imprisonment in a second criminal case for “discrediting the army” (Part 1, Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), her OVD-Info lawyer Andrey Ognev has told us.

The prosecutor had requested two years in a general-regime penal colony.

The comments attributed to the elderly woman were published on Odnoklassniki on 18 July 2023 during a discussion about the war in Ukraine. Among them were the following: “I think, as your beloved Putin said, you will go to heaven, and I will just die,” and “I demand an end to the war. Thou shalt not kill, no to war!” On 18 November, law enforcement came to Gordienko’s home and gave her a notice initiating proceedings.

In August, the Odessky District Court in Omsk region sentenced Gordienko to a year and a half suspended, under the same article for “discrediting the Russian army” (Part 1, Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code). This case was also based on comments she posted on Odnoklassniki. She was then given a two-year probation period and banned from administering websites for three years.

Earlier, Gordienko was prosecuted under administrative law for “discrediting the army” (Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). In October 2022, the elderly woman staged a solo protest in Omsk, a major city in Siberia, by the Bohdan Khmelnytsky monument, holding a placard that read: “Mothers, stop the war.” She was detained and later that day fined 30,000 rubles (US$335) under the army discreditation article, and a further 2,000 rubles (US$22) for “disobeying the police” (Part 1, Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). The decision under Article 20.3.3, after coming into force, enabled criminal proceedings to be brought against her.

After the protest, law enforcement officers began putting pressure on Gordienko. The day after, police came to her home and demanded she write an explanation—accusing her of supposedly wanting to “set fire to or blow up something.” The grounds were a telephone conversation she had with a village council representative after the announcement of mobilisation. Gordienko was told her son had to report to the military recruitment office. “I shouted: ‘Mine will never go! Do you know where you can shove that summons? I’ll set you on fire, but my children won’t go to this war! ’” she recalled. She was threatened at the time with prosecution for extremism or terrorism, but the case was never opened.

In June 2024, the authorities again searched the family’s home—supposedly as part of a criminal case against Sergey Gordienko, but this was not confirmed.

Anastasia Gordienko and her husband live in a rural settlement founded by Ukrainian settlers in the early twentieth century. Due to pain in her legs, she uses crutches: one leg has undergone joint replacement, and she is awaiting surgery on the other. Her husband has a disability caused by respiratory and cardiac diseases. They ran a farm, but were forced to close it, partly due to low milk purchase prices.

OVD-Info has reported in detail on the case against Gordienko. Her husband’s brother testified for the prosecution in court.