Ekaterina Babaeva

A resident of the Nizhny Novgorod region. A mother of four sons. One son is in a strict-regime penal colony on murder charges, another one is an officer in the Airborne Forces and has been fighting in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion. Together with her third son, Maxim, Babaeva set fire to a military recruitment office in the town of Shakhunya, 70 kilometres from their home village, on 15 November 2023. They acted on an assignment received from telephone scammers. They were immediately detained. Both were charged with committing a terrorist act by a group of persons, Babaeva was also charged with involving a minor in a particularly serious crime. On 24 July 2024, she was sentenced to 13 years in a general regime penal colony. Her youngest son was taken to an orphanage.