The sentence for translator Svetlana Savelyeva has been made harsher in the state treason case.

The First Appellate Court has increased by two months the sentence for translator Svetlana Savelyeva from Irkutsk Oblast, who was convicted of attempted state treason and preparing to illegally cross the border (Article 275 of the Criminal Code, Part 1 of Article 322 of the Criminal Code, both with the application of Part 3 of Article 30 of the Criminal Code). She now must serve 15 years and two months in a penal colony, reports Mediazona, citing SOTAvision.

The court changed the wording of the aggravating circumstance from “committing the crime during an armed conflict” to “during mobilisation.”

Savelyeva was detained in October 2024 in Kursk Oblast, a region bordering Ukraine. She was trying to enter territory controlled at the time by Ukrainian forces to meet her partner, who serves in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to the FSB, the woman intended to join the Ukrainian army.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, wrote that after Savelyeva’s detention she was held for about two months under consecutive administrative arrests and tortured to force a confession.