Latvian court sentences woman to six years in prison over €43 transfer investigators say was intended for drone-jamming equipment for Russian troops

The Riga City Court has sentenced Polina Kamleva, a resident of Rēzekne, to six years in prison for financing an armed conflict, Delfi reported. The outlet called her a pro-Russian activist.

Kamleva was accused of transferring 43 euros to buy a drone-jamming device that was to be supplied to Russian forces. Latvia’s State Security Service detained her in December 2025. Delfi reported at the time that she was a member of the Latvian Russian Union Party.

During a WhatsApp exchange in December 2024, Kamleva agreed to help raise money for military equipment for the Russian army, according to investigators cited by Delfi. An acquaintance from Russia’s Kaskad military-patriotic center asked her to help raise money for a mobile electronic warfare system.

Investigators said Kamleva contacted another acquaintance, who lives in Belarus, and asked him to transfer the money on her behalf because transfers from Latvian banks to Russian banks were impossible. He transferred 157 Belarusian rubles (about 43 euros) from his personal account.

In her final statement to the court, Kamleva said she had not intended to finance the Russian army and that the messages found on her phone did not clearly establish that the money was intended for Russian forces. She said she was out of work at the time and in serious psychological distress, so she had been unable to turn down the person who asked her for help. “What I did was wrong. I ask you to distinguish between doing something wrong and having criminal intent. I had no such intent,” she said.

Prosecutors had sought an eight-year prison sentence for Kamleva. Under Latvia’s criminal code, financing an armed conflict carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.