Maria Ponomarenko

Maria Nikolayevna Ponomarenko (; born 5 September 1978) is a Russian journalist and human rights activist. In 2023, she was sentenced to six years in prison for her reporting on the Mariupol theatre airstrike.

Biography Ponomarenko was born and raised in Barnaul, Altai Krai, in what was then the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union.

Ponomarenko worked as a journalist for the Siberian branch of the Russian outlet RusNews, which published stories on Telegram. In March 2022, she published a story on RusNews' Tsenzury net channel about citizens of Mariupol, Ukraine, who had been killed when the Russian Armed Forces bombed the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre on 16 March, as well as those injured. The attack had been described as a war crime by Amnesty International.

In April 2022, Ponomarenko was arrested by Russian authorities, who accused her of "discrediting the Russian Armed Forces" in her article which was described as including untrue information about the airstrike. She was held in pre-trial detention until November 2022, when she was released under house arrest. In January 2023, Ponomarenko was placed back in pre-trial detention after running away from her home which was stated due to her being forced to live at the same address as her abusive ex-husband. Ponomarenko stated that she had attempted suicide in September 2022 while detained.

On 15 May 2023, Ponomarenko was transferred to Penal Camp No. 22 in Krasnoyarsk.

In 2024, Ponomarenko went on hunger strike over prison conditions, requiring hospitalisation after 149 days. In 2025, she was sentenced to an additional year and ten months' imprisonment after allegedly assaulting two prison guards, a charge she denied. During the trial, Ponomarenko criticised Vladimir Putin and stated she was not proud of her country, comparing it to an alcoholic mother.

Response Ponomarenko's arrest and imprisonment was criticised by various human rights organisations, including PEN International and Amnesty International which called for her release, citing article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Constitution of Russia. Amnesty International described her as a prisoner of conscience; an appeal against her detention was led by the human rights group Memorial.

In 2023, Ponomarenko was awarded the 2023 Boris Nemtsov Prize.