“My goal isn’t to be free—it’s to remain a human being”. The closing statement of volunteer Nadine Geisler, sentenced to 22 years in prison

On June 20, Belgorod volunteer Nadezhda Rossinskaya, 30, also known as Nadine Geisler, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of treason and aiding terrorism. At the start of the full-scale war, the volunteer group she founded, Army of Beauties, actively helped Ukrainian refugees. Later, Geisler left for Georgia, but then returned to Russia and was detained in February 2024. The grounds for her arrest under the article on “public calls for activities against state security” was an Instagram post calling for donations to the Ukrainian Azov battalion. The activist denied any involvement with this account. She was subsequently charged with “treason” and “aiding terrorism.”Geisler’s case was heard by the 2nd Western District Military Court in part behind closed doors. Two Mediazona sources claim that before the trial began, FSB officers strongly discouraged Belgorod journalists from covering it. Many details are still unknown, but the activist’s closing statement, in which she refutes the investigation’s version point by point, sheds some light on the indictment.In particular, she mentions accusations of directing drones in the Kharkiv region, although her passport did not contain any marks about crossing the Ukrainian border. As well as testimony against her given by her sister, who was brought to court from a psychoneurological hospital, accompanied by a nurse. Mediazona translated the statement with comments from lawyer Alexei Pryanishnikov, who is coordinating Nadine Geisler’s defense.

Your Honor, I believe that all 14 volumes of my criminal case consist of lies, theories, and assumptions made by the FSB. When the case was presented in court, there were no evidence of my guilt. As has been repeatedly stated here, rumors, guesses, and assumptions are not evidence. The ownership of the account has not been proven, and even the IP address of the device has not been established. The transfers were made by a foreign citizen personally from her own device and bank app, to which I did not have access, as she openly stated.

Lawyer Alexei Pryanishnikov, who is coordinating Geisler’s defense, clarifies: she is referring to Iryna Pereborshchikova, a Ukrainian volunteer living in Georgia who “interacted with Nadine regarding all evacuations.”

“Since she does not live in Russia, she could not be questioned. That is, as a witness with official witness status. However, she agreed to communicate with an FSB operative via video link. So the case file contains a transcript of this conversation,” says Pryanishnikov.

At the same time, the details of Pereborshchikova’s Georgian bank card are listed among the accounts to which Geisler collected money — a link to these details is still available on her Instagram account. In other words, the volunteer collected money to help refugees on the same card that Pereborshchikova could then use to “make transfers” to Ukraine.

I’ve heard many times that people have been prosecuted for money transfers, even if they did not know for whom or for what the money was intended. But I’ve never heard of a person being prosecuted who did not make transfers and probably could not even have made them.

Moreover, our last witness explained very clearly that these transfers were personal, between him and Iryna, as previously agreed, and that I had nothing to do with them. It turns out that the FSB’s bullet-proof theory does not stand up to scrutiny when targeted by reality.

The last witness mentioned is another Ukrainian volunteer, Serhiy Kovalchuk, who, according to Pryanishnikov, testified remotely that Nadine’s aid was intended exclusively for civilians.

If we consider the matter on its merits, what does the colour of my hair or clothing at different periods of my life have to do with it? News on REN TV: yellow subtitles on a blue background. And I saw bright blue signs with bright yellow lettering that read “Government Institution” or “Parking Lot” today on the facade of the detention centre where I am being held. But they don’t bother or scare anyone, they don’t discredit anything. After all, the flag of the country where I was born is blue and yellow. So is it the colour that is disturbing [for the authorities] or is it me?

Why does the prosecution so biasedly focus on the fact that when I speak I can use Ukrainian words, as if this were some kind of evidence? Or does the Ukrainian language potentially threaten the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation, which is what I have been accused of since February 1, 2024? This is complete nonsense.

After all, according to the Constitution of this very same Russian Federation, I can speak in absolutely any language. You cannot advocate for the protection of the Russian language on the territory of Ukraine and at the same time present the Ukrainian language on the territory of Russia as evidence of guilt.

In Vasily’s testimony, the prosecution twice emphasizes that I helped an 11-year-old boy return to Ukraine to his mother, who used to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But not that the child was finally reunited with his mother, whom he had not seen since the beginning of the armed conflict.

I would like to emphasize that when the issue is framed in this way, we destroy morality and family as an institution. For a mother and child are sacred, inviolable, and should not be politicized. When Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova gives an interview about how, with her assistance, Veronika Vlasova was returned home to her mother in Ukraine, despite the fact that her mother is also a military serviceman in Ukraine, no one sees this as a pro-Ukrainian position. When I do the same thing — not even within a month, but within just a week — my virtue is recorded in the volumes of a criminal case.

I ask myself, what’s the difference? Why am I not thanked for my help? After all, this was not done by the state, but by me, with the help of people who care as much as I do. I get the feeling that I live in some kind of anti-world, where my every word and deed is distorted in every mirror.

The prosecution asked if the Ukrainians have ever thanked me for the help I gave them? Did they do it publicly. And for some reason, the quetion was addressed to my mother, not to me. But no one can answer this question better than me. Did they thank me? [Yes,] from the very first time I didn’t let people sleep on the street, from March 7 to 8, 2022.

The very first cans of food and loaves of bread. They thanked me in audio and video calls, in messages, in comments on my social media page and group, in my posts and stories. They thanked me personally for saving their lives, for ensuring that their children were clothed, fed, or received medicine. For the fact that their child was simply found on Russian territory and returned to their mother.

They even thanked me for burying their daughter humanely, rather than leaving her body in the morgue. They thanked me for allowing them to see their grandfather alive. They even told me that in the last days of his life, he had asked for canned food from home to be brought to him in the hospital, which I had brought him as humanitarian aid. With the words, “Find that canned food, [it’s] the most delicious.” This man remembered me and my actions even on his deathbed.

They also thanked me for the fact that they were able see their father alive. A cancer patient in the zone of combat, he wasn’t left without vital, expensive medication. He received it as humanitarian aid from me. And almost every week, I sent shipments of medical supplies to the homes of Izyum residents. That’s almost 800 people a week, not counting the Izyum Central District Hospital and the Izyum Railway Polyclinic.

They thanked me for covering the cost of vital operations in Russia, which no one was going to provide without pay for people affected by the armed conflict. I was thanked by head physicians of the hospitals that I supplied with medicines. Although, I believe that this task should not have fallen on the shoulders of caring Russians, who simply did what the state was supposed to do—out of the goodness of their hearts.

I obviously spoke openly and publicly about all of this, without hiding anything or keeping anything secret, whether people liked it or not. Equally important is that all these people thanked me openly as well. They did not care at all about my citizenship, place of birth, nationality, or what language I speak. This is where our common humanistic views lie.

Although none of the views proposed here included this option, I will offer my own. The question of my views and position was raised so often during questioning by people I knew and people I did not know. I decided to answer it myself, even though no one asked me. No one’s welfare or any higher goals can be achieved or justified at the cost of human lives. When one person’s rights are denied, the rights of all people are trampled upon, and a society of powerless beings is doomed to destruction. Personally, I have no intention of perishing under any circumstances, and therefore I will focus on the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses. Testimony that flakes off after the first question, faster than Make Up For Ever mineral face powder.

For example, Vladislav claims that he personally saw posts on my Instagram account offering help to people affected by flooding in Ukraine and areas controlled by Ukraine. But at the same time, he is stumped by the fact that he did not know that the town of Oleshky in the Kherson region was under the control of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

I also find it hard to believe that the testimony of my sister, Elena Egorova, is being taken seriously. Simply because before my arrest and after it, she claimed that in 2023 I was living in Kharkiv and had even found a job there. This is stated in her testimony and in a recording of her personal telephone conversation with her own mother. However, now in court, accompanied by a nurse from a psychiatric clinic, she claimed that this was “some kind of nonsense, I couldn’t have said that.”

According to her, I had correspondence with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky himself, which was of great interest to counterintelligence officers on the day of my arrest and for several months afterward. But now she says that it was a humorous essay, the intention was to learn the Ukrainian language and improve writing skills. She also says that I suddenly disappeared without reason, but no one even looked for me or called my mother. In some of her statements, she says that she only logged into the [Instagram] account a couple of times, and in others, she says, “I would have suggested what details to post myself.” How reliable can this testimony be?

Pryanishnikov clarifies ерфе Elena Egorova is not Geisler’s biological sister. The lawyer notes that the defense had information that Egorova was “dependent on some kind of sedative medication” and therefore did not trust her testimony. It later became known that the woman had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

“[Geisler’s sister] may have been under pressure. Given her condition, I believe she said what the investigator wanted to hear,” the lawyer argues. "After providing her testimony during the investigation, she regretted it very much. She tried to somehow justify herself to Nadezhda. Apparently, the sister managed to correct her testimony in court. My guess is that when she was questioned during the investigation, she was in some kind of state where she couldn’t really think straight."

And I was completely disappointed in the secret witnesses. Well, at least we all had a good laugh. It’s easy and pleasant for me to tell the truth. I was waiting for this moment. But it’s hard for them to lie. Especially because they simply don’t understand what they’re talking about. And out of ignorance, in their answers they reveal information that is known only to the FSB.

Our secret witness, “a former volunteer of the Army of Beauties,” begins her testimony by saying that my personal account nadin_skillz was renamed ua_help_nadin. And she is a witness to this, because, according to her own words, from that moment in November 2022 she not only viewed my posts, but also took screenshots of them, which were subsequently handed over to the FSB investigator.

But at the end of her testimony, she finally remembers the poorly memorized text and gives a new version. The ua_help_nadin account was created in the summer of 2023. And she saw it with her own eyes. Since I openly posted a link to the ua_help_nadin account on my personal page nadin_skillz, later renamed nadin_geisler. But for some reason, none of the several thousand subscribers saw it. There is no evidence of this among the posts or stories.

During one of the early the court hearings, Geisler learned that she was accused of being the author of the now-deleted Instagram account ua_help_nadin, where money was allegedly collected for Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov battalion. A post on Twitter (X) by user @ililjkl with a photo of Nadine on the user pic mentions this account: “I run a second Instagram account in English where I call things as I see them. If you are safe and can repost EVERYTHING, please respond and help promote the @ua_help_nadin account.”

As Pryanishnikov notes, the volunteer herself denies any involvement with this Instagram account.

Equally surprising is the fact that our secret witness knows things that only the FSB knows. Namely, all my movements between countries. And, in fact, which countries they were. And even the brand and model of the phone I was given in Georgia. But if you study all my posts and stories, it will become clear to anyone that I have never disclosed the country I am in. Especially the countries on my route. I would also attribute her knowledge of the phone model, and not just the brand, to extrasensory abilities. Once again, I ask myself, who is this circus for?

According to Pryanishnikov, “one of the secret witnesses seems more like a fictional character.” She did not testify in court, and the interrogation transcript was read out in her absence.

“The testimony given by this secret witness cannot refer to any of the volunteers with whom Rossinskaya interacted: the facts, or alleged facts, that she presented, the words she used, do not fit any of the people with whom Nadine communicated and interacted during the evacuation of Ukrainians," he insists.

The lawyer says that there is no evidence in the case that the accounts mentioned were actually managed by Nadine Geisler.

“That is, the activities carried out by Nadezhda to evacuate Ukrainian civilians and animals, some shelters with a large number of dogs, were interpreted by the investigators, by the prosecution, and subsequently by the court, as activities to collect money and transfer it to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, there is no objective evidence of this,” Pryanishnikov believes.

“This case unique. In other similar cases involving charges of treason or aiding terrorism, there are at least some attempts to prove, for example, money transfers to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Here, no one even thought of making such attempts, but simply took Instagram posts with bank card details, which do not mention anything about donations for military needs, and called it financing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In other words, there is a presumption of treason in the form of financing the Armed Forces of Ukraine in relation to any assistance to peaceful citizens of Ukraine.”

Показания засекреченного свидетеля в СИЗО не менее прекрасны. Шедевры выдаются с самого начала. То мы познакомились в СИЗО, то не в СИЗО. А уже в третий раз, когда я задала вопрос с целью подчеркнуть эти разногласия, нам дается отвод, отказывается отвечать! Видимо не знает, как ответить так, чтобы было более менее понятно правдоподобно.

Она с уверенностью заявляет, что я помогала украинской армии с начала СВО. Но потом, видимо, уже позабыв о своих словах, [заявляет, что я] помогала украинской армии с конца 2022 года. Так все же?

Как говорит Алексей Прянишников, Россинская из камеры в СИЗО передавала, что у нее новая соседка — «разговорчивая девчонка, тоже с какой-то там такой фирменной статьей, назовем это так, что-то такое, связанное с терроризмом якобы». Эта сокамерница стала «постоянно вытягивать ее на разные откровенные разговоры, касавшиеся исключительно самого дела».

Надин, по словам юриста, заподозрила, что общительную сокамерницу к ней подсадили сотрудники СИЗО, и впоследствии это подтвердилось — ее показания попали в дело и легли в основу одного из обвинений.

«По всей видимости, перед ней была поставлена цель собрать как можно больше информации, которая бы означала признание вины Надеждой, но этого не получилось — ничего ценного в показаниях этих тайных свидетелей нет», — считает он.

I recorded the climax of the testimony verbatim: “Was broadcasting live from territory controlled by Ukraine, specifically from Liman, and coordinating the work of drones in a coded manner.” In other words, I was broadcasting from Ukraine. And again, no one on the planet saw it. There is no evidence whatsoever.

Moreover, I coordinated drones! It is logical to assume that in order to coordinate UAVs, it is necessary to provide the operator with coordinates or landmarks, since the view from the air is significantly different from that on the ground.

In addition, people who do this usually wear khaki uniforms, different outfits, because they don’t want anyone to recognize them. It’s as if I had been trained by the special forces since infancy, doing it openly and online, in a highly coded manner.

I am not a military person. Perhaps I am too stupid to see the logic here, but too smart to deny it. The prosecution is not ashamed to include documents in the case files that allegedly confirm my presence in Ukraine in 2023. Simply by my very existence.

To admit that this is true would mean admitting that I could teleport from one country to another, bypassing a third, and then travel all the way back, heading to a fourth country. Without a single stamp in my passport. It turns out that there is a conspiracy at the highest level between the special services of Georgia, Turkey, Moldova, and Ukraine. And, by the way, we are talking about the very passport that is in the case file and has been with the FSB all this time, even though they convinced everyone otherwise. And here again, the question arises: how could in be my word against the word of the FSB? If they say for a year that there is no passport, then there is no passport. And then it can appear, and that’s it. This is the FSB!

Before Geisler's closing statement in court, there had been no information about such accusations against her. According to Pryanishnikov, the investigation accused the activist of “everything under the sun.”

“The absurdity of the whole situation is that she has a travel passport, and there are no marks on it indicating that she entered the country, and she did not enter through territories where hostilities are taking place. She was not in Ukraine at the time the investigation claims she was, and the security forces themselves know this very well; they have her passport, they can see everything there.”

I assume they needed a year’s head start to fabricate the case more plausibly. There are so many plot holes in both the documents and the witness statements that they could easily serve as camouflage on the battlefield.

The prosecution seemed to have missed the volunteers’ testimony in court, where everyone, except for the confidential witness, confirmed that I personally gave my phone to the volunteers so that they could post or respond to calls and messages. And this testimony was available to everyone.

Each time, the witnesses were asked about my humanitarian activity, but I still haven’t had the opportunity to talk about it in full. In the zone of combat, people received aid from me in the form of a monthly supply of food, medicine, hygiene products, and household chemicals.

The monthly package per person consisted of a 50-liter bag, and every month I had shipments to each settlement. And these were almost all villages under the control of the Russian Federation armed forces. If I can be somewhere, I will make every effort to be there and help these people.

In addition to direct assistance to people, medicines were also delivered to hospitals, which lacked not only hemostatic drugs, but even saline solution. Of course, help was also provided to animals, which is where I started: domestic animals, strays, kennels, and shelters. We purchased food, grain, veterinary supplies, and transport cages so that people could leave with their pets.

I just imagined at some point how I would survive if I found myself, say, in a building in the middle of nowhere: no electricity, no water, first aid kit is empty, nothing in the fridge, in the cupboard, nowhere. And I have animals, maybe even children. What do I need? I thought of these people as if they were my own family. And I am sure that others who have the means to support them, who are responsible for all this, should have thought about them too.

Refugees in the Belgorod region were provided with assistance depending on their family composition, mobility, and health status. We rented housing for them and provided them with essential supplies: inflatable mattresses, bedding, dishes, clothing and shoes, food, household chemicals, hygiene products, medicines, and medical rehabilitation equipment.

We paid for operations, doctor consults, and home visits by nurses. We visited the sick and wounded in the hospital and brought them everything they needed. In most cases, aid for refugees was delivered to us, but people also came to our warehouse. It started with the Belgorod Red Cross, which has state funding, sending them to me, while I had nothing. Humanitarian aid was even shipped to the Virazh temporary accommodation center, where refugees were housed. Simply because there was not enough there.

So in the combat zone, I am trying to do everything a person needs to survive. They have food for a month, not a small bag, but a real sack. They should not go a single day without at least a piece of meat. They have cereals, they have medicines, painkillers, antipyretics, antiviral drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, everything they need for bandaging—in addition to what was brought to people for a year and everything else they need upon request.

I brought to hospitals for emergency treatment of injuries. Who else thought this way about these people? Hand on heart?

Transportation services were also paid for to evacuate people, and tickets were purchased for onward travel, because many people had relatives in other cities in Russia or other countries. Along the route, accommodation in a hostel and meals were paid for. In other words, a person receives help there, they help him evacuate, they help him live in Belgorod and on the territory of Russia completely.

It was as if a naked man stood before me without an ID, without anything, and we helped him restore his documents, confirm his identity, and even arranged for someone to come to his home and restore it. We clothed him, fed him, treated him if necessary, or if we couldn’t do it ourselves for some reason, we helped him connect with his relatives, whether it was in Russia or abroad. We paid for and organised transportation for the disabled and bedridden, for everyone.

Unfortunately, the list of assistance we provided also included paying for and organising funerals. Throughout my career, I have tried to ensure that people who have lost literally everything, even their documents, find themselves in humane conditions, know and feel that they are not alone, that their lives are valuable and important, and that their right to life will be fought for.

My desire to help is motivated by the value of these people and their lives, and the fact that they suffer undeservedly. I have my own moral code that I live by, a set of laws that protect life itself, humans, animals, and even plants. And I will not stop telling the truth because of threats, of which there have been many over the past three and a half years.

If they want to punish me for this, what is the essence of those who seek this punishment? Not only that, but to give the trial the appearance of legality. Throughout the investigation, I was pressured to accept undeserved guilt. I was blackmailed not with a crime, but with virtue. I was promised that I would rot within the walls of the system, that I would follow in the footsteps of Alexei Navalny, hinting at my health, that I would never give birth.

According to Pryanishnikov, Geisler was regularly visited in the detention centre by an operative who was convinced that if she “helped Ukrainians, then she helped enemies.”

“Throughout the investigation, one operative visited her endlessly, intimidating her in various ways, bringing her strange books with hints, persuading her that if she confessed the sentence would be more lenient. All of this indicates that the position of the investigation and the prosecution was shaky, they were very concerned that she would not admit her guilt, and they tried to get her to do so in various ways.”

But even if I am convicted, even if I end my days behind bars, I will not die childless, as some would have wanted. I have awarded myself the right to be considered a mother of many children. A mother to all the children I have managed to help. And no punishment will ever overshadow the joy from the fact that they are all alive and safe.

You can fabricate evidence. You can intimidate and create witnesses. But you cannot destroy the truth in the form of tens of thousands of people who have been helped and millions of people who are witnesses to that. I fought for every human life in every possible and impossible way. I allowed myself the luxury of having a personal opinion and expressing it publicly. I spoke the truth that they wanted to hide.

But I am not a criminal or a murderer, and there is not a drop of blood on my hands. And yet they still asked for 27 years. That was their demand. My goal isn’t to be free—it’s to remain a human being.

If I am not acquitted after all, and if the requested sentence of 27 years is handed down, then give me 27 years and one day. Let there be something unusual. I will break a new women’s record. That’s all from me. Thank you for hearing me out.

With Elizaveta Nesterova

Editor: Dmitry Shvets