"They Put a Bag Over Her Head and Shoved Her Into the Car": How the Russians Kidnapped Kherson Student Anya Yeltsova and Forced Her to Testify Against Herself
After the liberation of Kherson, Russian forces unleashed brutal terror against civilians on the left bank of the Kherson region, which remains under occupation.
Twenty-one-year-old Anya Yeltsova, a student at Kherson State University, was abducted in November 2022 in the village of Agaymany. FSB officers stormed her grandmother’s house, conducted a search, and interrogated the family. Ultimately, they brazenly took Anya away in front of her relatives. She has been held captive in Crimea for over a year now, accused of espionage due to her pro-Ukrainian views and love for her homeland.
We spoke with Anya's relatives and relevant officials to uncover who may have betrayed her to the occupiers, how she stays in touch with her family, why Russian authorities lie about when they captured her, and how they coerced her into a false confession.
"Everyone Knew She Had Pro-Ukrainian Views"
"My grandmother was there when they took her," Anya's aunt, Svitlana Kushnir, recalls. "Anya had gone to see her grandmother, the director of the local school. The Russians often visited the woman to force her to cooperate."
The grandmother consistently refused to collaborate with the occupiers. But that one time, they weren’t there for her. Everyone in the house was split up into different rooms and subjected to lengthy interrogations, especially Anya. The grandmother overheard armed men in balaclavas saying they had been monitoring Anya on social media for a long time. They also mentioned finding something on her phone that displeased them — evidence, in their eyes, of support for the Ukrainian army.
"They put a bag over her head and shoved her into the car. That’s how they took her," Svitlana recounts.
Russian forces target residents of occupied territories for any display of patriotism, Ukrainian symbols, or similar expressions. Those like Anya Yeltsova, who openly declare allegiance to Ukraine, are at even greater risk. For many residents of Kherson, patriotism has come at the cost of their lives.
"We knew Anya had a pro-Ukrainian stance, that she didn’t want to cooperate [with the occupiers]," Svitlana explains. "She used social media to call for support [for the Armed Forces of Ukraine]. When Kherson was liberated, she posted a video: ‘Kherson, my dear, you’re home.’ She also wrote about winter approaching, urging people to help our boys with warm clothing. So, of course, everyone understood that she had pro-Ukrainian views."
Even now, Anya's social media contains patriotic posts, including her poems written from the perspective of a Ukrainian soldier. When sharing these, the student could hardly have imagined the price she would pay for her beliefs — or the lengths to which the Russians would go.
Student Resistance
Anya Yeltsova comes from the village of Balashove in the Ivanivka district, located on the left bank of the Kherson region, 80 kilometers from Henichesk. The Russians occupied it immediately after the full-scale invasion began.
Anya’s parents are ordinary villagers. She kept in touch with them but lived in Kherson. She was in her final year at Kherson State University, preparing to graduate as a teacher. Anya aspired to become a psychologist and loved painting.
On March 1, 2022, Russian forces entered Kherson. The city’s residents began organizing protests against the occupation, proudly displaying their Ukrainian identity and even blocking Russian military vehicles. Kherson’s resistance inspired the entire country.
In the wake of the resistance, the Russians began persecuting pro-Ukrainian activists, journalists, politicians, ATO/OOS veterans, volunteers, and anyone who could be connected to the resistance movement. One by one, they took people from their homes to torture chambers, persecuted, and intimidated them.
From April onward, as Ukrainian forces began liberating villages in the Kherson region, the occupiers intensified their repression against patriotic locals, anticipating a Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was during this time that Russian soldiers arrived at the dormitory where Anya lived.
“The Russians told the students to either cooperate with them or leave the dormitory. How could they cooperate? I can’t imagine,” Anya’s aunt, Svitlana, wonders.
For students, showing a patriotic stance meant becoming heroes of their time. Anya, too, couldn’t act otherwise. Faced with the occupiers’ demands for collaboration, she left the dormitory in Kherson and returned to her home in Balashove. Later, her grandmother invited her to stay in the village of Agaymany, also in the Kherson region. Anya agreed and moved in with her.
How and Who Betrayed Anya
When the Russians took Anya captive, her grandmother’s health began to deteriorate severely. She felt responsible for what had happened to her granddaughter.
“At first, just mentioning Anya’s name would make her faint — she felt so guilty that they took her granddaughter from her,” Svitlana recalls. “Then [Editor's Note: a few months later], I saw a journalist investigation claiming that my niece had been betrayed by a fellow villager — a collaborator. This woman was always dissatisfied with something, and during the occupation, she agreed to work with the Russians. She may have betrayed Anya as an act of revenge against her grandmother [Editor’s Note: who declined to lead the school during the occupation]."
According to a journalist investigation, Galyna Kostenko, the village head of Agaymany and a collaborator, could have played a role in the abduction of Anya Yeltsova. Kostenko volunteered for the position herself at the beginning of the occupation. Gaining an unprecedented level of power, she tried to demonstrate her importance.
Kostenko actively aided the occupiers by settling Russian soldiers into abandoned homes and pressuring locals to obtain Russian passports. She also threatened the villagers with deportation of young children to Russia if their parents didn’t comply with her demands.
The journalist’s investigation, citing local residents, alleged that Kostenko sought revenge against Anya’s family for their defiance and used her actions to intimidate others into cooperating with the enemy.
In November 2024, the Prosecutor General’s Office formally charged Kostenko with collaboration. She faces five to ten years in prison, along with the confiscation of her property.
A Year-Long Search
After Anya’s detention, her parents immediately began searching for her and went to Henichesk.
"We went to the military commandant’s office, but they just sent us back and forth. Some said we weren’t ‘entitled’ to know, others claimed no one would tell us where Anya was. They even said there was no point in filing a report," Anya’s mother, Oksana*, recalls.
A few days after her abduction, Anya managed to call her parents. Briefly, she assured them that she was okay, saying she was being fed and not harmed. However, she did not reveal where she was being held.
Her family in Ukrainian-controlled territory reported her disappearance to the police and every official agency they could think of. But Ukraine’s state authorities are physically unable to search for people in occupied territories.
In December 2022, a video featuring Anya appeared on the Russian propaganda outlet RIA Novosti, and relatives and friends recognized her. In the footage, she looks downward and speaks in a monotone voice, delivering sentences taken out of context.
Both Anya’s aunt and her friends believe she was subjected to violence to coerce her into a public confession.
"She has bruises under her eyes. If you zoom in on the video, you can see that she’s crying — her eyes are filled with tears. She doesn’t look like herself," emphasizes Svitlana.
Anya’s friends and acquaintances raised the alarm from the very beginning, sharing her photo with posts about her disappearance. Her entire university community was deeply concerned about her fate.
"She was a student at Kherson State University. Her parents have had no information about her for a month," wrote the university’s rector, Oleksandr Spivakovskyi.
Meanwhile, Russian propaganda spread rumors that no one, apart from the rector, was looking for the student and that her disappearance was fabricated.
On some propaganda channels on social media, the occupiers published posts threatening Anya with up to 20 years in prison. They labeled her a spy, accusing her of transmitting information to Ukrainian intelligence.
Anya’s relatives called on the public to join the search for her and continued reaching out to every possible organization. By early 2023, her parents still had no idea where she was and believed the abductors were holding her somewhere in Henichesk.
"I don’t know how Anya’s mother managed to endure it," says Svitlana. "She would say that evening time was her prayer time and that she was ‘talking’ to Anya. I asked her, ‘What do you mean, talking?’ And she replied, ‘I tell her everything will be fine and that I know she’ll come home.’"
The First Letter
A year after Anya’s abduction, her parents received a letter with a Crimean postmark. For the first time, they learned what had happened at her grandmother’s house and where Anya had been held all this time.
"Our daughter wrote that when we first went to Henichesk, she was there," Oksana explains. "And a couple of days later, on December 20, her birthday, they transferred her to Melitopol. Within a month, they sent her to Crimea."
Anya also wrote that visiting her wouldn’t be worth it because she wouldn’t be allowed to see her family. From her handwriting and style, her parents knew it was undoubtedly her. In the letter, Anya asked her parents to contact her through Zona Telecom.
Her parents sent Anya letters, but for some reason, she never received them. This went on for almost two years. Finally, in August 2024, a man claiming to be a state-appointed lawyer contacted her family.
From him, the family learned that Anya was accused of espionage and so-called "treason against the motherland," referring to Russia. To make such accusations stick, she would need to be a Russian citizen. It’s possible she was forced to accept a Russian passport. Later, after the lawyer's involvement, Anya herself was able to get in touch.
"She called us for the first time and could barely say anything. She told us she had lost 10 kilograms. She also said it was very cold in her cell, with bars on the windows but no glass," her relatives recount.
Through another person, whom they paid for assistance, Anya’s parents managed to send her hygiene products and clothes. However, the pre-trial detention center staff returned the bed linens because they weren’t white — as only white linens were reportedly allowed in the facility.
To all their inquiries about Anya’s case, her parents were told that everything was classified. At least they understood that she was being held in one of Crimea’s pre-trial detention centers.
Then, on October 18, 2024, Russian propaganda outlet TASS published a news story with a video. Despite the blurred face, Anya could be identified. The segment claimed that the Russian FSB had recently detained a resident of Kherson Oblast in Crimea for espionage for Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU). According to the report, she had allegedly gathered and transmitted information about the locations of Russian troops.
At the end of the video, the courtroom is shown, and the judge announces a two-month detention period while the case is under review.
"I don’t understand why they’re lying like this when she’s been in their custody for two years already. And they say it’s been two months," her aunt exclaims. "Maybe the occupiers are trying to intimidate people in Crimea. Recently, they’ve been publishing a lot about supposedly catching spies in Feodosia and Sevastopol. And why are they claiming she gave information to the SBU? We understand she’s just doing what they’re forcing her to do. I don’t think she’s speaking freely at all. They made her do it."
Anya shares a cell with other Ukrainian women whom the Russians have accused under the same "espionage" charges. One of them is volunteer Iryna Horobtsova, who was abducted by the occupiers in May 2022. Some of the detainees, including Iryna, have already been sentenced to decades of imprisonment. Their families are waiting for them at home.
"We miss her so much and are waiting for our daughter to come home," Anya’s mother says.
"Forced Into a Confession"
The case of Anya Yeltsova contains numerous elements of a war crime, according to Ukraine's Prosecutor General’s Office.
In particular, law enforcement officials see clear signs of enforced disappearance, which occurred in front of witnesses. Back in November 2022, FSB officers took Anya from her home in the presence of her relatives, leading her to an unknown location, concealing her whereabouts for an extended period, and completely cutting off her connection to the outside world. They violated her rights to legal representation and medical care.
Anya only gained access to a lawyer after her formal detention was recorded — nearly two years after she was illegally held "in the dark." Later, the Russians released a video in which Anya appeared to confess. Such practices have become a routine method for the occupiers.
"They simply forced Anya to incriminate herself," explains Yuriy Bielousov, head of the Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Conditions of Armed Conflict at the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine.
"In over 90% of cases, hostages confessing to alleged crimes is a clear indication that torture or cruel treatment was used against them. Hostages may falsely incriminate themselves or admit to things that never happened. This is almost 100% proof that the individual has been subjected to serious psychological or physical pressure."
According to Bielousov, the release of a new video featuring Anya nearly two years after her disappearance could serve multiple purposes — for example, to intimidate Ukrainian civilians in occupied territories. However, in this case, he believes this motive is secondary.
When the Russians falsify the date of someone's detention, it is an attempt to cover up the crime of enforced disappearance and illegal imprisonment. If no one knows anything about the individual, the perpetrators calculate that it will be difficult to prove that the person was ever in their custody. In 99% of enforced disappearances, there is also evidence of unlawful criminal prosecution and the denial of the right to a fair trial.
Under the norms of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, every detainee has the right to legal representation, medical assistance, and communication with the outside world. Proving the absence of these rights already casts doubt on any verdict in such cases, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office. However, the primary challenge is gaining access to information about individuals who have been unlawfully detained—and here, legal defense plays a crucial role.
"Civilians who are detained are often charged with fabricated crimes such as ‘espionage,’ ‘resistance to the so-called Special Military Operation,’ or other ‘terrorist acts,’" Bielousov states. "It’s crucial to provide as much legal protection as possible for people in occupied territories. There are several brave organizations that participate in these sham trials, and they are often the only source of information about what’s happening in these cases."
According to international humanitarian law, Anya Yeltsova is considered a civilian hostage. Her case is being investigated in Ukraine under Article 438 of the Criminal Code — violations of the laws and customs of war. Specifically, the investigation addresses enforced disappearance, unlawful criminal prosecution, as well as evidence of torture and inhumane treatment.
Under the rules and customs of war outlined in international humanitarian law, civilians are entitled to special protection, and any form of detention, imprisonment, or legal proceedings against them is illegal. Russia ignores these norms and systematically targets civilians in occupied Ukrainian territories.
Hostages are often held "in the dark" for years before their detention is officially recorded. Following this, prolonged sham trials take place, frequently ending in harsh sentences of decades in prison.
***
In late October 2024, Anya’s parents were finally able to visit her.
"It was extremely hard for her mother during those two meetings," says Anya’s aunt, Svitlana. "She told me she had to take sedatives to avoid crying, but even that didn’t help. Visits are only allowed twice a month, but the trips are very expensive, so she used both days back-to-back. Anya said this detention center is better than the previous one. Still, her mother sends a lot of medication — painkillers and sedatives. Anya, of course, can’t say anything. You can tell she’s mentally broken."
According to her relatives, Anya’s first so-called court hearing is scheduled to take place soon, and she will be transported to Chonhar for it. During the proceedings, Anya is prohibited from seeing or communicating with her parents. Then, on February 13, 2025, Russian media reported that Anya had been charged of spying and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.
*the name is changed
The text was created in collaboration with The Reckoning Project, a global team of journalists and lawyers documenting, publicising and building cases of war crimes — exclusively for Signal to Resist.
