Ryzhkov Valeriy Aleksandrovich (Rizhkov Valeriy Oleksandrovich)

In early March 2023, in the occupied Luhansk region, Russian law enforcement detained 18-year-old first-year student of the Luhansk Agrarian Institute Valeriy Ryzhkov on charges of espionage and sabotage. Six months later, his parents were also detained on suspicion of espionage - a couple from the village of Novoaidar, Lugansk region, Ukrainian citizens, 46-year-old Alexander Ryzhkov and 40-year-old Irina Ryzhkova. According to the investigation, starting in late spring 2022, the student son involved his father in collecting and transmitting information about the deployment and routes of the Russian Armed Forces. The mother worked at the local hospital and informed her husband and son about the admission of the wounded to them. According to her, she understood that her relatives were communicating with Ukrainian special services and transmitting information via the internet, but to avoid scandals, she continued to provide them with data on Russian servicemen in the hospital. In particular, it is alleged that the detained family was involved in a HIMARS MLRS strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on a hospital in Novoaidar at the end of January 2023. Then, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 14 people died in the building, and 24 hospital patients were injured. Valery, according to the security forces, during telephone conversations with unknown persons transmitted data on Russian military personnel and military equipment of the Russian Federation, and also committed sabotage in the area of the village of Mars in the Novoaidar district on the railway: the young man dismantled the joint fastenings of the running thread of the upper structure of the track. The defendants in the case were placed in a pre-trial detention center. No later than July 10, 2025, the Supreme Court of the Lugansk People's Republic found the Ryzhkov spouses guilty and sentenced Alexander Ryzhkov to 18 years in prison to be served in a strict regime penal colony, and Irina Ryzhkova to 16 years in prison to be served in a general regime penal colony. There is no information about appealing the verdict.