Russian woman who lived in Ukraine for more than a decade faces treason charges after returning to Moscow to replace her passport
Authorities in Russia have opened a treason case against Svetlana Golovatenko, a Russian citizen who lived in Ukraine for more than a decade, after she flew to Moscow to renew her documents.
Russian citizen Svetlana Golovatenko, who had resided in Ukraine for over a decade, now faces treason charges following her return to Moscow to renew her passport. Born in Severoonezhsk, Arkhangelsk region, Golovatenko was a manicurist and pedicurist living in Kyiv for more than a decade. She possessed a Ukrainian residence permit and had family ties in Russia.
Golovatenko traveled to Russia via Georgia on April 23 to replace her expired internal passport and re-register her home in Donetsk. Upon arrival at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, she was detained and subsequently sentenced to 15 days of administrative punishment for "petty hooliganism." Following that, seven identical charges were filed against her, leading to multiple court cases in various regions, including Kaluga.
On August 4, a Moscow court sentenced her to another 15-day term. Following the expiry of this sentence, authorities reportedly initiated a criminal treason case against her. In a similar case in June 2026, a dual Russian-Belgian citizen, Mikhail Loshchinin, received a 16-year prison sentence for treason. Loshchinin had traveled to St. Petersburg to visit his ailing father in 2022.
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