The St. Petersburg City Court has sentenced 29-year-old Ukrainian Ivan Zabavskyi to 11 years in a high-security penal colony on espionage charges, Mediazona reports.
Zabavskyi, a Kharkiv resident, was arrested in June 2023. His mother, Maryna Zabavska, had remained in the village of Tavolzhanka, Kharkiv region, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In September 2022, Zabavska’s sister was killed in a shelling attack. As Russian forces advanced, she fled to Russia.
With no communication in Tavolzhanka, Ivan was unable to contact his mother. He decided to travel there as a humanitarian aid driver—the only way to access the frontline area.
He disappeared soon after, as the village fell under Russian occupation. Locals later told Zabavska that they had seen Russian soldiers take her son.
In May 2023, Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed that he was being held in Russia, accusing him of “opposing the special military operation”—a phrase often used in Russian communications about Ukrainian civilian hostages.
Zabavskyi’s espionage trial began behind closed doors in the summer of 2024, with no public details of the charges. During closing arguments, the prosecutor requested a 13-year sentence.
