From Prison to Ruins: Freed Activist Yelena Berezhnaya Finds Her Home Wrecked
On 27 June, human rights activist Yelena Berezhnaya was released from Kyiv’s Lukyanivska Detention Centre after more than three years in custody. Her release followed a decision by the Kyiv Court of Appeal on 20 June to alter her pretrial restrictions. Instead of remaining behind bars, Berezhnaya was granted bail set at 302,800 hryvnias (approx. 6,160 EUR).
At the prison gates, she was greeted by political activists Mykhailo and Oleksandr Kononovych, both currently under house arrest and wearing GPS ankle monitors. Berezhnaya will now have to wear a similar device until 18 August 2025. Authorities have also confiscated her passport to prevent her from leaving the country.
In December 2024, Kyiv’s Solomyansky District Court sentenced the 70-year-old to 14 years in prison with property confiscation, convicting her of high treason. The case traces back to 2018. She was arrested by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in March 2022. During a search, investigators found a letter addressed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Prosecutors allege that Berezhnaya had repeatedly travelled to Russia and met with former Ukrainian officials.
In a video statement made just after her release, she said:
“These are the first minutes of my freedom—after three and a half years of torture, humiliation, insults, and attempts to erase human dignity. The authorities failed. I continued my fight while in detention, and I wasn’t only fighting for myself. My case before the European Court concerns far more than just me.”
Berezhnaya thanked her supporters and vowed to continue her struggle, declaring that “truth cannot be hidden.”
But the homecoming was brutal. When she returned to her Kyiv apartment for the first time in over three years, she found it looted and destroyed. “Everything has been stolen, torn out, or wrecked,” she said. The property is now uninhabitable.
Footage of Berezhnaya’s first steps inside the ransacked apartment was published here.
