Pro-Kremlin Blogger Tetiana Montian Gets 1.5 Years in Occupied Donetsk

A court appointed by Russian occupiers in Donetsk has sentenced Z-blogger and lawyer Tetiana Montian, 54, to one year and six months in a general-regime penal colony for calls to “extremism,” Russian outlet Mediazona reported, citing the court's press service and her lawyer Oleksii Kalugin.

The Voroshylovskyi inter-district court also banned Montian from administering websites for two years. Prosecutors had asked for five years in a penal settlement.

What the case was about

The case was opened in September 2025 over the phrase “охраноту мочить без жодного жалю” (roughly, “drown the security guards without mercy”), said during a stream in December 2022. The head of the “League of Safe Internet,” Kateryna Mizulina, wrote that her organisation had appealed to the Interior Ministry because a “large number of citizens” complained of “discrediting the army” in Montian's posts. Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov and an employee of his channel, Boris Yakemenko, also criticised her, saying she stole money raised for Russian soldiers.

Montian and her supporters argued in court that by “okhranota” she meant bloggers who stay silent about frontline problems to please the authorities, and that “mochit” meant blocking bots in the comments of her broadcast. She also denied embezzling donations.

Background

Born in Crimea, Montian worked as a lawyer in Ukraine and in 2015 was added to the Ukrainian Myrotvorets database for legal help to fighters of the so-called “DNR” and “LNR.” In 2023 the SBU served her a notice of suspicion under four articles of the Criminal Code, including actions aimed at seizing state power and collaboration. According to investigators, she moved to Russia in 2021 and regularly visited occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to prepare propaganda reports. More in World.