Lawyers Assess Olga Petrova's Chances of Parole After Child's Birth

Olga Petrova, a resident of Makhachkala, convicted in a case of financing terrorism, will have to spend two years in prison after the birth of her child. In the case of serious crimes, the birth of a child rarely serves as a basis for parole, the lawyers pointed out.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel wrote, in December 2021, the court sentenced 36-year-old Makhachkala resident Olga Petrova to seven years in prison, finding her guilty of financing terrorism. Petrova pointed out in court that the main prosecution witnesses - Sagid Kazimagomedov, convicted of involvement in assisting terrorist activity, and Anna Papushina - in court, recanted their initial testimony . According to relatives, security forces began persecuting Petrova and her sister Irina Dudka after the women converted to Islam. In April 2025, human rights activists recognized Petrova as a political prisoner. Petrova gave birth to a boy in prison. She received a parcel with baby supplies, the fundraiser for which was organized by human rights activists.

Olga Petrova, who recently gave birth, still has two years left in prison, her daughter told the "Caucasian Knot". "She is in a regular detachment, and the child is in a separate building with all the other children," she said. "She has no complaints, everything seems fine, but the child will probably need a number of things - diapers and other things need to be bought once a month, and clothes for the fall and winter haven't even been bought yet," the girl emphasized.

She also said that she lives with her grandmother in her mother's hometown. “And my older sister lives and works in Krasnodar,” she said.

Starting in 2020, in accordance with Article 80 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, pregnant women or women with children under the age of three who are in a children's home of a correctional institution sentenced to imprisonment may have the unserved portion of their sentence replaced with a more lenient type of punishment after actually serving at least one quarter of the sentence for committing a minor crime, lawyer Timur Filippov told a “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

“For women convicted of committing crimes classified as moderate, serious or especially serious, the procedure for applying parole and replacing the unserved portion of the sentence with a more lenient type of punishment remains the same, and the presence of children is not an independent basis for parole,” he noted.

Filippov also emphasized that, in accordance with Article 100 of the Criminal Executive Code of the Russian Federation, convicted women can place their children under the age of four in children's homes of correctional institutions, communicate with them in their free time without restrictions. "They may be allowed to live together with children. If a child kept in a children's home of a correctional institution has turned four years old, and the mother has no more than a year left before the end of her sentence, the administration of the correctional institution can extend the child's stay in the children's home until the end of the mother's sentence," he said.

Lawyer Evgeny Chernousov noted that the birth of a child does not always lead to a mitigation of the sentence for its mother. "If this is a minor crime, then yes, the punishment is mitigated almost automatically, including by offering parole. But if we are talking about a serious or especially serious crime, then here a mitigation of the punishment, and especially parole, is much less common," he told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The possibility of mitigating the punishment after the birth of a child is strictly individual for each woman, lawyer Felix Vertegel confirmed. "It all depends on the severity of the crime committed," he noted.

Recall that Olga Petrova's sister Irina Dudka said that Kazimagomedov initially testified against her sister, but retracted it in court: "At the trials held in the fall of 2021, Kazimagomedov retracted his testimony and confirmed the fact of trading with my sister. Other prosecution witnesses were also questioned, who stated in court that pressure methods were used against them and that they signed the testimony under psychological duress, fearing for their lives. Defense witnesses, neighbors and acquaintances of my sister from Makhachkala testified about my sister's decent lifestyle, and my mother's neighbors also stated the same," she told the "Caucasian Knot". Irina Dudka herself, together with her family, was forced to leave Russia.

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