Belyaeva Anna Anatolevna (Byelyayeva Ganna Anatoliyivna)

In the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, on September 20, 2023, 31-year-old local resident and Ukrainian citizen Anna Belyayeva was abducted. For over a year, the woman was held without legal grounds, and only on December 5, 2024, was she officially charged with espionage and placed in pre-trial detention.

According to the security forces, Belyayeva decided to assist the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to her negative attitude toward Russian military personnel after the death of her cohabitant—a fighter from the Azov unit—in Mariupol. In April 2023, she contacted a representative of Ukrainian special services through her brother and, at their request, gathered information. According to the investigation, from May 2023 to October 2024, the woman transmitted data on the movement of Russian military equipment, trucks, and aircraft in the Berdyansk district.

Anna herself stated that during her arrest and afterward, for nearly 15 months, she was tortured, beaten, and abused. The only episode in the case involved falsification by FSB officers. In one of her letters, Belyayeva wrote that her captors showed another woman in her place, who 'wanted to confess everything and hand over her phone—the instrument of the crime,' while Anna herself was illegally held in Berdyansk Correctional Colony No. 77 (male).

No later than May 29, 2026, the Zaporizhzhia Regional Court found Anna Belyayeva guilty and sentenced her to 14 years in a general-regime colony. The court adjusted the date of her detention and took into account the actual period of detention—from September 20, 2023, rather than the date of official arrest listed in the investigation materials.