Riga court jails Rēzekne woman for six years over €43 transfer for Russian army equipment

The Riga City Court has handed a six-year prison sentence to Polina Kamleva, a Rēzekne resident, for financing an armed conflict. The news outlet Delfi reported the verdict and described her as a pro-Russian activist.

She was accused of sending 43 euros to buy a drone-jamming device intended for Russian forces. Latvia's State Security Service detained her in December 2025. Delfi reported at the time that she belonged to the Latvian Russian Union party.

What investigators say

According to investigators cited by Delfi, Kamleva agreed in a WhatsApp conversation in December 2024 to help collect money for equipment for the Russian army. An acquaintance from Russia's Kaskad military-patriotic center had asked her to help raise funds for a mobile electronic warfare system.

Kamleva then contacted another acquaintance, who lives in Belarus, and asked him to make the transfer for her, because payments from Latvian banks to Russian banks were not possible. He sent 157 Belarusian rubles, roughly 43 euros, from his own account.

The defendant's position

In her closing statement, Kamleva said she had never meant to finance the Russian army, and that the messages found on her phone did not clearly show the money was destined for Russian forces. She said she had been unemployed at the time and in serious psychological distress, and so could not refuse the person asking 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 asked for an eight-year sentence. Under the Latvian criminal code, financing an armed conflict is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.