Photo: SOTAvision

A Russian military court has sentenced an anti-war activist to 22 years in prison for treason, independent news outlet RusNews reported on Thursday.

Based in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, Nadezhda Rossinskaya, who also goes by the name of Nadine Geisler, helped Ukrainian refugees via the NGO Army of Beauties, which she founded shortly after the war began.

She was detained in February 2024 when re-entering Russia from Georgia, where she had temporarily lived fearing for her safety, and was added to Russia’s register of “extremists and terrorists” in September.

Rossinskaya was convicted of “public calls for action against state security”, “financing terrorism” and “treason”, and was fined an additional 320,000 rubles (€3,500). According to the investigation, Rossinskaya published an appeal in August 2023 for donations to the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, which Russia has declared to be a “terrorist organisation”.

Anton Prisny, Rossinskaya’s lawyer, said the investigation could not “establish either the IP address or the location of the device” on which the call for donations was made, independent news outlet Mediazona reported. Nor did the prosecution provide any evidence that she had transferred money to the battalion. Rossinskaya pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Rossinskaya was convicted by Oleg Shishov, the same judge who sentenced schoolboy Arseny Turbin to five years in prison for being part of a “terrorist organisation” in June 2024.