Espreso spoke with Oksana Senedzhuk’s daughter, Mariia Kostiuk. She said her mother, living in Sevastopol, never hid her pro-Ukrainian stance, taught Ukrainian at school, and after the full-scale invasion, wore a vyshyvanka, Ukraine's traditional embroidered shirt, and laid flowers at Taras Shevchenko’s monument on major Ukrainian holidays. Russia punished her for this.Fifteen years in prizon for no crimeOksana Senedzhuk was reported to the Russian FSB by her neighbor, who lived nearby in the same building.“At the end of April, my mother faced the first searches — the report came from our neighbor. There had been no conflicts between them. I still don’t understand what exactly prompted the neighbor to do this. She was probably very afraid of my mother’s pro-Ukrainian views. The interrogations lasted for two years. They seized laptops, computers, and phones. On my mother’s phone, they found photos of the bay, which they claimed were sent to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But our window faces that bay; such photos are taken by anyone who is there. It was just a normal photo,” Mariia recalls.In December 2024, Oksana Senedzhuk was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “treason.” She was initially held in a detention center in Simferopol, then transferred to a colony in Krasnodar, followed by Volgograd and Irkutsk. According to the latest information known to Mariia, before being sent to Ulan-Ude, her mother is in quarantine somewhere in Buryatia.“She is the only prisoner who was taken so far away. Other women were kept in Krasnodar or Volgograd — basically scattered closer to Crimea. But she was sent to the very end. She sent us letters, and we tried to write to her, but they didn’t reach her. For example, we sent a letter to Volgograd, but she had already been moved further. Correspondence is only possible through 'Zonatelecom' (communication services in institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia - ed.) She told my father that her health has worsened. My grandmother also fell ill, worrying about her daughter. That’s why my mother had asked not to be sent far from home, because she has elderly relatives, but this was ignored. Also, from what I know, the belongings she took with her were taken away — only socks and undershirts were left, while she was given shoes several sizes too big and a padded jacket,” Mariia Kostiuk recounted.Her family is most worried about how Oksana Senedzhuk will cope in a women’s colony, living with murderers and other criminals in barracks housing 80–90 people.“My mother is 59, and she received such a long sentence — 15 years. How can anyone endure that? And the worst part is that it’s for nothing, because she committed no crime.She is an educated, ordinary woman — a former teacher and philologist, who worked in administration — and now she’s thrown into such a marginal environment. She fears that, under the charge of “treason,” fanatics there could simply kill her.”Ukraine’s official stanceMariia’s father in Simferopol has been left to face this ordeal alone. Neighbors, acquaintances, and friends avoid him; some don’t even greet him. Mariia herself left Crimea immediately after Russia’s occupation in 2014. Her parents had also wanted to leave but couldn’t abandon their elderly parents there.Mariia Kostiuk has appealed to both international and Ukrainian legal authorities to free her mother. Oksana Senedzhuk is on the prisoner exchange lists, but so far, the situation looks hopeless.“I have reached out to the UN, the Ministry of Reintegration, the Coordination Headquarters, written to the Ombudsman, and to Kyrylo Budanov, and from all of this I only know that she is on the exchange lists. Apparently, she is also supposed to be on the lists in Russia, according to our lawyer, but it’s impossible to verify. I constantly try to remind Ukrainian authorities about our situation. I watch the news about all the exchanges, check the lists, but mostly only soldiers are included — very few women. In her letters, my mother emphasized that life is unbearably hard for women there, and they are treated worse because of their gender. We all love our mother very much. Relatives submit appeals to help in any way they can and to give hope for her return.”