The Fate of Having the Same Last Name

In 2022, Irina Navalnaya was riding her bike on Mariupol's beachfront when Russian forces arrested her. On October 7, she was convicted of terrorism for allegedly trying to interfere in the "referendum" for occupied territories to join Russia. Mediazona exposed how her last name played a role in her sentence.

Irina took the surname "Navalnaya" to honor her maternal grandfather and continue the family line. She has no relation to the famous dissident. The 26-year-old lived in Mariupol with her family and worked as a call center operator for the police department.

Then, Russia's War on Ukraine started. Her stepfather, Vladimir Stolyar, was among the defenders of Azovstal. When Mariupol fell, Stolyar was captured. He has been in Russian captivity ever since. Her paternal grandmother, Valentina Skachko, refused to leave Mariupol. On May 9, 2022, Navalnaya and her mother, Alexandra Skachko, fled the city.

Navalnaya and Skachko had to leave Mariupol through the occupied territories. Irina's last name quickly caught the attention of Russian forces. Skachko told Mediazona that the soldiers said, "Ah, Navalnaya, so, you are, like, Navalny's illegitimate daughter," and proceeded to push her against a wall and point a gun to her head. Skachko told her daughter "Lord, daughter, who would have known that a last name could turn people into subhumans?"

Eventually, the mother and daughter made it through Russia and the Baltic states to the unoccupied part of Ukraine. Valentina Skachko, who remained in Mariupol, wanted her granddaughter to return. In August 2022, Navalnaya went to her native city against her mother's wishes. 

A month went by and Navalnaya was preparing to return to non-occupied Ukraine. She was taking her usual morning bike ride by the Azov Sea when Russian authorities detained her on suspicion of "preparing a terrorist attack on the last day of the 'referendum' of unification."

Alexandra Skachko received the news of her daughter's arrest through RIA Novosti. She "felt cold all over, and [her] head immediately started to boil. [She] had a feeling that [the accusation] couldn't be true."

Skachko said she suspects that the fact that her daughter and Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny shared a last name aggravated her case. Besides, Navalnaya's previous job in the police force and her stepfather being an Azovstal defender further compromised her in the judicial process.

Soon after her arrest, a movie on her arrest was released on the propaganda channel NTV. In it, Navalnaya alleges that the Ukrainian Intelligence Service forced her to participate in the terrorist attack by blackmailing and offering her money. Her stepfather also appears in the documentary and says that Irina is incapable of committing a crime.

Navalnaya warned her grandmother not to watch the film. She said, "They hit me in the head so I would say what I say." Her mother watched the movie and said, "There is not a word of truth in it. Irochka tries to talk about her life, her studies, and they glue her words together, twisting them."

In January 2023, human rights activist Olga Romanova argued that Navalnaya was being tortured in a Donetsk pretrial center. The Ukrainian woman was put in a cell with convicts for two weeks. Prisoners in the pretrial center were beaten if anyone made noise.

In October 2023, she was transferred to Rostov-on-Don, Russia. There, she was able to begin speaking up about the torture she faced in Donetsk. She was forced to confess to a crime she didn't do in exchange for being transferred to Ukraine. During the initial interrogation, she said she was hit in the head and leg and given electric shocks on her thigh. She also recalled how she was beaten with sticks to film the documentary.

The main witness in her case, the deputy head of criminal investigations in the Primorsky district of Mariupol, changed his story many times before the judge. Yet, on October 7, Irina Navalnaya was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony.

In Ukraine, Navalnaya was given the status of a prisoner of war. Her lawyer, Ivan Bondarenko, plans to appeal the verdict.