Russian court sentences former cadet school dishwasher to 19 years for recruiting student into ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’

The 2nd Western District Military Court has sentenced Alexandra Zhitenko, a former dishwasher at a cadet school run by Russia’s Investigative Committee, to 19 years in prison and an 800,000-ruble fine on charges of recruiting students into the Freedom of Russia Legion, which Russia has designated a terrorist organization, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported on May 6.

Zhitenko, 53, was convicted of participating in a terrorist organization, helping enable terrorism, attempting to involve a minor in criminal activity, and organizing terrorist training, according to Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet. The state prosecutor had asked for a 20-year sentence.

A former teacher, Zhitenko took a job as a dishwasher at the Investigative Committee’s cadet school hoping eventually to become a cook, Mediazona reported. While working there, she ran motivational games with the cadets and paid them for cafeteria duty, practice exam drills, and creative assignments. Her aunt said Zhitenko had taken out loans worth tens of thousands of rubles.

Investigators said Zhitenko promoted the activities of the Freedom of Russia Legion and sought to draw one of the cadets into the organization, providing him with specialized literature on developing tradecraft skills, building dead drops, and reconnaissance.

Zhitenko told the court that the student had been the one to raise the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps with her, and that she had tried to talk him out of joining units fighting on Ukraine’s side. Beginning in March 2024, Zhitenko and the student retrieved three notes from the Kuzminskoe cemetery — notes she said she had written herself in Ukrainian and hidden on the grave of a young woman she had long tended. After that, the cadet lost interest. Zhitenko was arrested in July 2024.

Russia’s Federal Security Service had been monitoring Zhitenko and recording her conversations with the student since June 2023. Eleven days after surveillance began, the student approached the FSB himself and asked it to look into her activities. Those recordings became the main evidence in the case.

Zhitenko did not admit guilt. Her defense argued that she had not been recruiting the cadet but had used a pedagogical technique — going along with him in order to steer the teenager away from a dangerous interest in a banned organization. Her defense attorney said Zhitenko had partially admitted guilt during the investigation under pressure, after the investigator persuaded her that doing so would help keep the cadet out of pretrial detention. The defense attorney said she plans to appeal the verdict.