- 65 Ukrainians from the occupied territories, or tried in Russia on political charges, had a known court event in October 2026: 40 sentenced, 16 charged or on trial, 9 detained.
- The 40 sentences add up to 669 years in prison for 37 people, plus one life sentence and two suspended sentences. The average custodial term is 18 years.
- 25 of the 40 sentences came from one court in Russia: the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don. Another 12 people are on trial there.
- 22 of the 65 are women.
- Where they come from: occupied Crimea and Sevastopol 35, Zaporizhzhia oblast 20, Kherson oblast 6, Donetsk oblast 1. Three more live in Russia and are not from an occupied territory.
- The most common charges are under Russia's Criminal Code: possessing explosives (art. 222.1, 24 people), treason (art. 275, 23), terrorist act (art. 205, 17), "terrorist community" (art. 205.4, 14), and membership of a "terrorist organisation" (art. 205.5, 10, all in Hizb ut-Tahrir cases).
- These are minimum figures. They count only cases that became public. Thirteen people are unnamed. Fifteen are known from a single source. Twenty have no published date for the October decision.
- Another 39 cases were reported in October but decided in another month, mostly September. They are in the Civilian Detainees Database under their own months.
October in brief
Sources follow each section in square brackets. Where sources disagree, each version is given.
In October, Russian and Russian-installed courts sentenced at least 40 Ukrainian civilians, most of them from the occupied territories. Between them: one life sentence, two suspended sentences and 669 years in prison. Another 16 people were charged or put on trial, and at least 9 were detained. That is 65 people, and only the cases that became public.
Most were not tried at home. Twenty-five of the 40 sentences came from a single court, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, inside Russia.
Crimea. On 8 October that court sentenced eight Crimeans accused of plotting to kill the occupation leader Sergei Aksyonov and other officials, and of rail sabotage. Kyrylo and Viktor got 27 years each, Denys 23, Ihor 20, and Serhiy and another Serhiy 19 each. Two women, Olha and Olena, got suspended sentences of five and a half and five years. KHPG gives the two women's terms without saying which woman got which. One of the men told investigators his confession was obtained with electric shocks.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Crimean Human Rights Group; MIHR; also reported by the pro-Russian Telegram channel Krymsky SMERSH]
A Kerch couple, Serhiy and Yevhenia, got 25 and 17 years. They were accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a car with Z symbols and of planning to blow up railway tracks. The Crimean Human Rights Group dates the verdict to 15 October and KHPG reported it on 16 October. ZMINA's 16 October report covered only the prosecutor's demand of 28 years.
[Crimean Human Rights Group; KHPG; ZMINA]
On 21 October six Crimean Tatar men from the Bakhchysarai area were given 15 to 19 years for alleged membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic movement that is legal in Ukraine. They are Ruslan, Remzi, Seidamet, Abdulmedzhit, Ametkhan and Eldar. No violent act was alleged. Since 9 October four young Crimean Tatar women have been on trial in the first women's Hizb ut-Tahrir case in Crimea: Esma, Nasiba, Fevziye and Elviza, the youngest of them 19.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Crimean Human Rights Group; Memorial; OVD-Info; the men's case was also reported by Krymsky SMERSH]
On 22 October Volodymyr, aged 77, was given 18 years over a plot to kill Aksyonov that KHPG calls fictitious. Memorial, ZMINA and the Crimean Human Rights Group put his fine at 600,000 roubles; KHPG says 400,000.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Crimean Human Rights Group; Memorial]
Diana, 43, had lived abroad since 2022. ZMINA reports she was detained at Sochi airport on her way back from Turkey. A court in Krasnodar gave her twelve and a half years for a donation of about 29 euros to Ukraine's armed forces. KHPG and the Crimean Human Rights Group date the verdict to 29 October; Memorial says 30 October.
[KHPG; Crimean Human Rights Group; ZMINA; Memorial]
Also in Crimea: Volodymyr, a 51-year-old farmer, got 15 years for allegedly marking an air-defence system on an online map. Oleksandr got 15 years for allegedly setting fire to a railway relay cabinet for 200 dollars. A 35-year-old man from Bashtanivka got six years for Telegram comments urging support for Ukraine's army.
[Volodymyr: Crimean Human Rights Group; KHPG; ZMINA. Oleksandr: ZMINA; Memorial. Bashtanivka man: Crimean Human Rights Group]
Zaporizhzhia region. On 16 October four people from Melitopol were sentenced over bomb attacks on collaborators in 2022 and 2023. Ihor got life. Serhiy, another Serhiy and Olena got 25 years each. The defendants retracted their confessions and described torture. In court, Ihor said he was a Ukrainian serviceman.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Memorial; the Centre for the Study of Occupation's Telegram channel]
On 23 October Roman, 28, and Artur, 31, were given 24 and 23 years for allegedly planting bombs in 2022, one of them at a school used for the sham referendum. It was their second trial. Both say their confessions were extracted by torture.
[KHPG; Memorial; the Centre for the Study of Occupation's Telegram channel]
The Russian-installed Zaporizhzhia regional court announced more sentences on its own Telegram channel, giving only initials. Rights groups have since identified most of the people:
- Liubov, 64, from Blahovishchenka: 17 years.
- Dmytro, 30, from Melitopol: 14 years. According to KHPG, this was for a donation of about 10 euros.
- Oleksandr, a school caretaker from the Tokmak district: 13 years.
- A 53-year-old man from Matviivka: 14 years.
- Valentyna, her son Andriy and an acquaintance, Serhiy, all from Berdiansk: 17, 19 and 19 years, over an alleged plot to blow up a gas station.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Memorial; the occupation Zaporizhzhia regional court's Telegram channel; the Centre for the Study of Occupation's Telegram channel]
From Mykhailivka, Natalia got 16 years. Muira got eight, although the court accepted that Natalia had never told her about any "terrorist organisation". Muira had simply been in the car with her.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Memorial; the Centre for the Study of Occupation's Telegram channel]
Kherson region. Nadiya from Nova Kakhovka got twelve and a half years for treason. Her husband was sentenced to 11 years in June. KHPG dates her verdict to 21 October, Memorial to 22 October. The court did not name her; Memorial and the "If there were no war" project identify her from the details.
[KHPG; Memorial]
On 22 October Andriy, 34, from Kherson oblast, was given 20 years for treason, illegal possession of weapons and explosives, and preparing a terrorist act. Only Memorial's case card reports it; no details of the alleged act have been published.
[Memorial]
A 55-year-old man from the Hornostaivka district got 14 years for treason. According to the occupation court, in January 2025 he transferred 2,010 hryvnias, less than 5,000 roubles, to someone raising money for a car for Ukrainian soldiers. The court did not name him.
[Mediazona, citing the occupation court's website]
Hanna, 52, a former history teacher from Pershokostiantynivka, was detained in August over Telegram comments supporting Ukraine's defenders. On 12 October she appeared in a forced "repentance" video. Her case is going to the Rostov military court.
[KHPG; ZMINA; Memorial; Krymsky SMERSH's unnamed "woman born 1973 from Kherson oblast" appears to be her]
In Russia. On 12 October the Leningrad Regional Court gave Vasyl, 41, a Ukrainian citizen from Pavlohrad who had lived in St Petersburg since the early 2010s, 23 years and a fine of one million roubles for sabotage, eleven counts of assisting sabotage, espionage and attempted use of explosives. Prosecutors say he gathered information on military and "life-support" sites and set fire to a transport facility. He was in custody by the end of December 2023.
[Mediazona, citing the regional prosecutor's office; Memorial]
Detained. On 19 October the FSB announced the "arrest" of a 63-year-old woman from Chornomorske in Crimea. It accused her of photographing air-defence sites. Rights groups identify her as Tamara, a former ambulance paramedic. They say she was abducted in 2025 and held incommunicado until now. KHPG calls the identification almost certain; the Crimean Human Rights Group calls it most likely.
[KHPG; Crimean Human Rights Group; Krymsky SMERSH]
Also detained in October:
- three people in Sevastopol;
- two more in Crimea, one of whom the Crimean Tribunal identifies as Yevhen S.;
- two women from Berdiansk and Polohy;
- Oleksiy, from Enerhodar.
In occupied Donetsk, the rights defender Maksym D. was held for ten days' administrative arrest.
[Krymsky SMERSH; ZMINA; Crimean Human Rights Group; KHPG; Memorial; the Centre for the Study of Occupation's Telegram channel; OVD-Info]
These are the cases we could confirm from Ukrainian and Russian human rights groups and from the occupation authorities' own channels. The real number is higher. The full list, with every source for every person, is on TOT Insights.
The cases in detail
Every person in this briefing is in the Civilian Detainees Database, where the October cases can be searched and filtered by oblast, crime type and stage. Each record gives the charge, the alleged act, the sentence, every source that reported the person and, where sources disagree, each version. Cases reported in October but decided in another month are in the database under their own months.
Open the October 2026 cases in the database →
How this list was compiled
Sources searched (1 October to 12 November 2026):
- ZMINA: the October and November archives.
- Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG): all English-language publications.
- Crimean Human Rights Group: its political-prisoner and monitoring tags and news.
- Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR): the monthly monitoring reviews and individual case articles.
- Memorial's political-prisoner support project: news, and the individual case cards with their sentence dates.
- OVD-Info: its automated monitoring feed and its treason (art. 275) pages.
- Perviy Otdel: it has published no October case reports yet. Its latest is the Q3 2026 statistics.
- Three Telegram channels:
- the Centre for the Study of Occupation, a Ukrainian channel that monitors occupation announcements;
- the press channel of the Russian-installed Zaporizhzhia regional court (@oblzprsudrf);
- Krymsky SMERSH (@cremeasmersh), a pro-Russian channel that repeats FSB statements.
Claims from the occupation-side channels are the prosecution's version and are attributed as such.
Rules:
- Who is counted: a person is counted if a verdict, charge or detention involving them took place in October 2026 and was reported by 12 November.
- Who is included:
- civilians from occupied Crimea, Sevastopol, and the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, wherever they were tried;
- Ukrainian citizens tried in Russia on politically motivated charges.
- Who is excluded: prisoners of war and serving soldiers, verdicts by Ukrainian courts, and in-absentia verdicts.
- Doubtful status: where civilian status is in doubt, the person is included and marked.
- One entry per person: each person appears once, with every source that reported them. Spellings across Ukrainian, Russian and English were reconciled by hand.
- Where sources disagree, each version is shown.
- No gaps filled: a field is left out where no source states it.
Limits:
- Most verdict dates come from rights groups, not court records. Twenty October decisions have no published date and are counted on the strength of being reported in October.
- Identifications of people the authorities did not name rest on rights groups' matching of age, place and alleged act. Each one is marked with a Caution.
- MIHR's monthly review for October had not been published by 12 November and may add cases.
- Three October verdicts were added on 12 November: two found in Memorial's case cards during a search for earlier cases (Vasyl K., Andriy A.; K. verdict was also reported by Mediazona), and one reported by Mediazona from the occupation Kherson court's website (an unnamed man from the Hornostaivka district). Other October cases may still be missing.
Corrections are reviewed by the research team and incorporated into the next update.