The Korsakau family from Minsk has been convicted on charges of state treason. The verdict was handed down by the Minsk City Court on June 10. Pelageya Korsakava was sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison, while her parents, Tatsiana Korsakava and Dzmitry Korsakau, received sentences of 12 and 14 years respectively. They were also fined 50,000 Belarusian rubles, the newspaper Solidarity reported.
Twenty-seven-year-old Pelageya has lived in Ukraine since 2021. She works as a graphic designer and also coordinates rapid-response volunteers at the sites of missile strikes. The volunteers assist people affected by shelling.
Pelageya’s parents, 57-year-old Tatsiana and 56-year-old Dzmitry, worked at a kindergarten. They were detained in September 2025.
“On September 26 last year, my father called me and said something terrifying: ‘I have been detained, your mother has been hospitalized with a stroke, come here, everything is very bad.’ Then someone else, who did not identify himself, took the phone and continued: ‘Your parents have been detained. If you want us to release them, you must come here,'” Pelageya said, recalling the detention. It later emerged that her mother had not actually been hospitalized.
The parents were charged under Part 1 of Article 356 of the Criminal Code (state treason), Part 4 of Article 295 (illegal handling of firearms, ammunition and explosives), and Part 3 of Article 333-1 (illegal cross-border transportation of toxic substances, firearms, ammunition and explosives). Pelageya was found guilty under Part 1 of Article 356 (state treason).
She described the accusations as absurd.
“What weapons? What state treason? Our only ‘crime’ is that I live in Ukraine and we stayed in touch, speaking regularly on the phone. My parents were worried about me as well. Based on that, it seems, the security services let their imagination run wild,” she said.