Verdicts Without a Trial: Russian Prosecutions in Crimea
Experts and investigators have ample evidence that Russia systematically fabricates cases against its opponents while withholding the right to a fair trial.
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Verdicts Without a Trial: Russian Prosecutions in Crimea
Experts and investigators have ample evidence that Russia systematically fabricates cases against its opponents while withholding the right to a fair trial.
Ukrainian journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko used to work in Crimea, covering the impact of Russia’s occupation on the peninsula. A freelancer reporting for Krym.Realii, a project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), he often worked under a pseudonym for safety reasons, producing stories on ecological damage, the situation of the Crimean Tatars and local attitudes toward the de facto authorities.
On March 10, 2021, officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained him at Crimea’s Angarskyi Pass.
Yesypenko was imprisoned in a basement where he was interrogated and subjected to torture before being transferred to a pre-trial detention centre in Simferopol.
Initially, he was charged with the “illegal manufacture, modification or repair of explosive devices” and the “illegal possession and transportation of explosives” under Articles 223.1 and 222 of Russia’s Criminal Code. The occupying authorities later claimed to have found a grenade in his car.
In court, Yesypenko categorically denied the charges, stating that the explosive device was planted and that his testimony was extracted under torture – including a “confession” interview broadcast on Russian television which the journalist said was recorded under duress.
Nonetheless, on February 16, 2022, the Simferopol City Court sentenced Yesypenko to six years in a penal colony and a fine of 110,000 Russian roubles (1,430 US dollars). Following an appeal, the Moscow-controlled Supreme Court of Crimea reduced his sentence to five years but upheld the conviction.
Yesypenko was released on June 20, 2025, after serving his full term, and immediately returned to Ukraine.
“A Russian court is just a cast of extras carrying out orders from the Russia’s FSB leadership,” he told IWPR. “I knew that Ukrainian patriots were never acquitted, so I understood the same would happen to me. At that point, it didn’t matter what sentence I would get – five years or eight.”
Yesypenko emphasised that the actual facts of a case were irrelevant in the Russian criminal process. The verdict was already written before the trial began.
Experts and investigators say that there is ample evidence that Russia consistently fabricates cases against residents of Crimea, while denying them access to justice or the right to a fair trial.
Attorney Emil Kurbedinov, who has defended political prisoners in Crimea since 2014, has handled hundreds of cases that all share the judiciary’s complete subservience to the FSB and the formulaic nature of the accusations.
“One of my clients said that the reality in Crimea can be summed up in a single word: helplessness,” Kurbedinov recounted. “Those are not the words of a broken man, but a sober assessment of the situation. In these conditions, the law doesn’t function.
“You can be branded a criminal with a single decree. The courts are entirely controlled by the security services and exist to serve their interests.”
According to Kurbedinov, most cases of so-called extremism or terrorism follow a familiar pattern: they begin with secret recordings of conversations which are handed over to supposed experts – linguists, psychologists and religious scholars – who then manipulate the content to fit the required criminal charge.
Independent specialists consulted by the defence deem these expert analyses unreliable. But the court, the lawyer said, “turns a deaf ear” to any independent opinion. Verdicts are essentially copied from the FSB’s fabricated case files.
Another key component is the use of concealed witnesses; individuals the defence never sees, whose voices are electronically distorted and who often fail to provide any substantive answers.
“A concealed witness usually just reads from a script,” he continued. “We’ve repeatedly seen witnesses who can’t answer a single follow-up question. Their voices are distorted and their faces are concealed. We have every reason to believe these could be people who have never even met the defendant. Yet their testimony is treated as absolute truth.”
Kurbedinov noted that the vast majority of Crimea’s terrorism cases were brought against ethnic Tatars, adding that documenting this selective prosecution was crucial as it will be a key element in future legal proceedings.
Legal Classification
The Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol is conducting procedural supervision in 73 criminal proceedings related to the violation of the right to a fair trial on the peninsula. All of these proceedings indicate that the actions of the occupying authorities are not isolated incidents, but part of a policy.
“Our files document evidence of the deliberate denial of people’s right to a fair trial. Such actions bear the hallmarks of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the prosecutor general’s office said in a statement. “We have submitted 13 communications to the International Criminal Court regarding violations of international humanitarian law. In 2024, the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) confirmed that Russia has been systematically violating human rights in Crimea since 2014. This documentation is the foundation for future justice and a mechanism to protect witnesses.”
The prosecutor’s office emphasised that occupation authorities systematically violated the Geneva Convention in its treatment of civilians. To address this, the Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression was established to collect verified evidence of these crimes.
Prosecutors also highlight the challenges of working with witnesses, noting that people in the occupied territories were afraid to come forward and communication was possible only through secure electronic channels.
An analytical report by the ZMINA Human Rights Centre posited that Yesypenko’s case was an element of a targeted policy. The report’s authors gathered evidence demonstrating how the Russian Federation systematically persecutes Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war, both on its own territory and in occupied lands, by stripping them of fair trial guarantees.
ZMINA explicitly defines this denial of the right to a fair trial not as an internal flaw in the Russian judiciary but as a potential war crime and crime against humanity. These are not merely “unjust verdicts”, but rather components of a wider system of coercion.
According to ZMINA, charges of terrorist activity are the most common, accounting for roughly half of the cases sampled. These are followed by accusations of espionage, treason and “illegal manufacturing or possession of weapons and ammunition”.
Russia’s policy of prosecution is targeted, specifically against certain groups: activists, journalists, Crimean Tatars and community leaders with a distinct Ukrainian identity, the report statesd. These individuals are more likely to face charges of “extremism”, “terrorism” or “treason” and their trials are often conducted in closed-door hearings and with pressure exerted on their relatives.
In conditions where access to a lawyer is limited and a person can be held in an information blackout for weeks, media attention and pressure from human rights advocates is vital. Yesypenko noted that without public outcry, political prisoners found themselves completely dependent on the security forces. The human rights defenders who worked on his case did more than provide legal aid – they also supplied him with vital necessities like medicine, food and basic supplies.
