The Russian-controlled Crimean Supreme Court on Thursday (Aug. 2) sentenced a Ukrainian Orthodox priest to 14 years in a harsh labor camp for conviction on false espionage charges.
The Prosecutor’s Office alleged that the Rev. Kostiantyn Maksimov, 41, of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), used the internet to transmit coordinates of the deployment of Russian air defense equipment to the Ukrainian security service.
Rights group Forum 18 said there is no evidence to support the claim and that the prison sentence conflicts with international law under the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilians in time of war. Under this law, Russia is required to respect Ukrainian laws in occupied terrain.
“I’m in such shock. I had hoped for less,” Maksimov’s mother, Svetlana Maksimova, told Forum 18 after Thursday’s hearing in Simferopol. “We will appeal against the sentence, though I don’t think it will be changed.”
She has not seen her son since December 2021 and said she hoped he would be included in reported prisoner swaps between Ukraine and Russia. Forum 18 stated that Maksimov likely would remain inside Investigation Prison No. 2 in Simferopol, pending any appeal before transfer to a labor camp.
Under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code, espionage carries a jail term of 10 to 20 years.
Maksimov served at the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Tokmak city, in Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Region.
He had been arrested by Russian forces in the town of Chongar in May 2023 after trying to cut across a border with occupied Crimea.
Russian authorities brought him to court with the trial beginning on June 6 – more than a year after his initial arrest and incarceration.
Forum 18 has tried to obtain information about the trial by phoning the prison where Maksimov is jailed and Russian-controlled authorities such as the Zaporizhzhia Region Prosecutor’s Office in Melitopol, the duty prosecutor at the Crimean Prosecutor’s Office in Simferopol, the Zaporizhzhia Regional Court and the chancellery for criminal cases at Crimea’s Supreme Court.
None of these authorities either answered or responded to the watchdog group’s requests for further information.
Artyom Sharlay, head of the Russian occupiers’ Department for Work with Ethnic, Religious and Cossack Organizations of the Social and Political Communications Department, did not answer his phone, according to Forum 18. The department is part of the Internal Policy Department of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration.
Sharlay previously told Forum 18 in October 2023 that Maksimov did not want the Berdyansk Diocese of the UOC to join with the Russian Orthodox Church.
The priest’s jail sentence is the latest event in a crackdown trend against Christians in Russian-occupied territory.
