Luhansk student sentenced to more than 12 years on high treason charges
Kristina Odintsova, 20, has been sentenced to 12 years and two months in a general-regime penal colony on charges of passing information to Ukrainian security services. The verdict was announced by the ‘Supreme Court’ of the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’, a body created by the occupation authorities. Pro-Russian outlets revealed her name.
‘Through visual observation, covert photography and video recording, and the use of other multimedia functions of her mobile phone, citizen O. deliberately moved around the city of Luhansk, collecting information about Russian military personnel and law enforcement officers and passing it to a representative of the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine], for which she received monetary payment,’ the court’s press office said.
A post that remains available in a local Luhansk VK community says that Kristina Odintsova went missing on 7 October 2024. According to the post, she ‘left the Dahl University hall of residence at 5.48am. She was walking to the Spar [supermarket] in Soniachnyi, where her friends were waiting for her so they could go to work. Before leaving, she told her friends she was on her way and would be there soon, but she never reached them.’ That evening, her mother received a text message from Kristina’s number: ‘everything is fine, I’ll be in touch, I’ll call’. Her mother could not reach her by phone. This may be when Kristina Odintsova was detained in connection with the high treason case (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). She was charged with gathering information between 1 January and 31 August 2024.
Russian security officials publicly announced Kristina Odintsova’s detention in April 2026. In a video released by the FSB, she says that an SBU officer contacted her on Telegram in 2024 and that she began carrying out his tasks. According to her, the officer was interested in the number plates of black SUVs and the opening hours of a hair salon, and she also had to report whether a particular street was residential. She says she was paid between 1,500 and 3,000 hryvnias (about €30-60) for this. The SBU officer later asked her to visit a restaurant and a beauty salon and report who visited these establishments and how often. Kristina says in her ‘video confession’ that she refused to carry out these tasks.
