Svetlana Kudryashova

A Moscow-based journalist, born in 1967. She is Ukrainian by nationality. She has two children and an ill mother. Her former partner, who served in the Azov Regiment, was killed in Kharkiv in 2022.

She was first detained in the summer of 2022 for displaying banned symbols–a tattoo featuring the emblem of the Azov Regiment, which had been made by her former partner. In the summer of 2023, a criminal case was opened over the repeated display of banned symbols, and she was sentenced to seven months in a penal colony. In the winter of 2026, in a new criminal case concerning the display of banned symbols, she was sentenced to two and a half years in a penal colony. Thus, she was convicted twice for the same act.

2020s

Reading time: 3 minutes

The Final Statement

‘I do not consider myself guilty. I ask that this decision be overturned. I did not commit this crime’.

‘I do not consider myself guilty. I am Ukrainian! I was born Ukrainian, just as people are born with a certain hair or eye color. We Ukrainians, who have lived in the Russian Federation for many years and hold Russian passports, have grown accustomed over this long period to considering the Russian Federation our second home. But the newly emerged ‘Black Hundreds’, neo-Nazi groups such as Poznyakov’s group, believe that our second home should now be a prison and a concentration camp.

I will never agree with the position of the neo-Nazis who call us degenerates and a failed nation. The Russian Federation is a multinational state. And what I am being accused of on the basis of a post published in Poznyakov’s group is, in fact, that the investigator, Tulaev, did everything to justify an organized group of neo-Nazis who escaped responsibility, incited interethnic hatred, called for the legalization of the genocide of Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, and bore absolutely no responsibility for any of this. Moreover, as I learned during the trial, no one had any intention of searching for them or establishing their identities. And when, during the pretrial investigation, I told the investigator that I could identify these people myself, establish the identity of the owner, and provide this information to the investigation–to the investigator–two days later I found myself in a pretrial detention center.

Moreover, I was accused of obstructing investigative procedures, which was untrue, as was subsequently established. I was accused of hiding from the pretrial investigation, which was also untrue. Furthermore, the case file contains a memorandum, a copy of which I sent together with my complaint to the Main Investigative Directorate. It states that I had repeatedly called on the public to change the existing government in the Russian Federation. It is also signed by investigator Tulaev.

I believe that I have been undeservedly sentenced to imprisonment; I did not commit the crime with which I am charged. I will not be the only one to suffer this punishment–my sick mother, who has a disability, will suffer as well, because she simply will not live long enough to see me return from the penal colony. My entire family will suffer this punishment, because starting in 2023, when this criminal case was initiated, a genuine campaign of harassment against me and my family began, both on social media and in everyday life.

The case file also states that I filed reports many times–after the material from Poznyakov’s group was published, it became clear that my contact information had also been leaked online. This information had been photographed by the second of these unidentified individuals while Umanets was photographing my documents, which he had asked me to show him. For more than two months, a swastika was drawn on the wall in the entranceway of my building, and the words ‘Get the hell out, Ukrainian bitches’ were written there. What could I do? I filed a report with the local police officer, but the officer did not try to find anyone, even though there were surveillance cameras as well. And I would regularly just paint over the swastika [inaudible].

I do not consider myself guilty. I ask that this decision be overturned. I did not commit this crime.

May 26, 2026.
Moscow City Court, Moscow, Russia.
Source: SOTAvision.
More information: Memorial.
Photo: Memorial.