in Ukraine, trials for “collaboration” with the Russian enemy number in the thousands

A small courtroom, one April morning. The accused, Volodymyr Hrytsenko, 41, is standing in the glass box. Three police officers surround him. The man is being prosecuted for having given information to the enemy from his village, 100 km from Kharkiv. Indications to help Russian intelligence locate the location of a Himars, this precious rocket launcher of the Ukrainian army. He denies it, in a small voice: “I am accused of having helped Russia to refine its strikes on military positions but I have no connection with all that. I did not collaborate. I am a Ukrainian patriot…”

Like him, in Ukraine, thousands of civilians or officials, accused of having sympathized directly or indirectly with the Russian occupier, are being tried for collaboration. More than 7,000 cases have already been processed in the courts throughout the country and in particular in the East, such as in this region of Kharkiv which Russia partially occupied for six months, in 2022. Although the war is not not finished, the Ukrainians want to move quickly and judge their traitors, even if the judicial work is not easy, under the persistent threat of Russian bombings.

“Russian intelligence continues to recruit Ukrainians”

No one came to support Volodymyr, who has been in pre-trial detention for several months. For “state treason”, Volodymyr risks a minimum of 15 years, or even life in prison. So he challenges, before the judge, the official lawyer assigned to him… The hearing is adjourned. The man accused of being a traitor is getting a new lawyer and will return at the end of the month.

There have been thousands of these collaboration cases in the country’s courts in recent months. “More than 900 already” in the Kharkiv region alone, says Dmytro Tchubenko, spokesperson for the city prosecutor: “This is not a definitive figure: every week, we discover new cases. And Russian intelligence continues to recruit Ukrainians.” A degree of collaboration sometimes very variable in these liberated regions: having helped the occupier to bypass a destroyed bridge, having put a “like” for the Russian army on a social network or having provided food to enemy soldiers…

Sentences vary, but acquittals are very rare. Olena Patsurkovska, a lawyer in the Kharkiv region, has never obtained one for her clients. She tells the case of this man in an occupied village, number 2 in a company that was shut down after the start of the war. The boss then fled to free Ukraine: “The employees came to him to tell him that they did not have enough to feed their children and that the company had to be relaunched, even under occupation… So he decided to collaborate with the Russians so that people could win their life. ” At his trial, the accused pleaded guilty, but explained that he had no choice: “He found himself trapped! On one side: the occupier. And on the other: the responsibility of his employees, who needed to eat.”

“All this is not without consequences”

Olena was unable to save him from 15 years in prison. Some human rights defenders – such as the Ukrainian NGO Zmina – are concerned about verdicts, sometimes considered disproportionate. At the court in eastern Kharkiv that afternoon, the place was plunged into darkness: power cut, threat of bombing. The second trial of the day cannot be held.

Instead, Judge Viktor Tcherniak places a blue file on his desk: the air alert register.“See, today it rang at 3 a.m., then almost every half hour until now. So, this makes it impossible for the court to function.”, he whispers. Courtroom evacuated, accused sheltered… It’s not easy to deliver justice in these conditions.

However, according to Judge Viktor Tcherniak, Ukrainian justice must be rapid and exemplary: “These cases of collaboration cannot just be mentioned in the news. People must understand that these acts are officially recognized as crimes by the state. This allows those who still have bad intentions against Ukraine to know that All this is not without consequences.”

But what risk do the Ukrainians who remain living in territories occupied for 10 years by Russia, such as Crimea, risk if they were to be liberated one day? The legislation is vague, the judge admits half-heartedly. And for NGOs, it is even a new model, which remains entirely to be designed.