She once spoke for Zelenskyy. Now Ukraine suspects her of treason over her interviews and posts

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Ukrainian investigators and prosecutors have named Iuliia Mendel, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s former press secretary, a treason suspect over her public statements, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) wrote. Mendel, who lives abroad, says the case punishes her for speaking out.

The suspicion moves her dispute with Kyiv from a sanctions list into a criminal case. Seven weeks earlier, Zelenskyy sanctioned her and nine other people over what his office called Russian propaganda and disinformation.

Prosecutors say Russian propaganda used her words

The SBU and the Office of the Prosecutor General served the notice in absentia on 3 November. The SBU said that in her public statements and social media posts, Mendel discredits Ukraine internationally and justifies the Kremlin regime and its full-scale war.

She is suspected of treason under martial law and of justifying Russia’s armed aggression. Under Ukraine’s Criminal Code, treason under martial law carries 15 years or life in prison, with confiscation of property.

The Prosecutor General’s Office said that Russian state and pro-Kremlin media actively used her statements in propaganda. Prosecutors cited forensic examinations that found signs of a violation of national security in the information sphere. They said her statements aimed to portray Ukraine as a state that does not deserve further support, and its leadership as an obstacle to peace.

Mendel responded on X the same day. She wrote that by bringing the suspicion, Zelenskyy had proved her right, and called the case a matter of freedom of speech, not collaboration. She called it “the price of freedom of speech and desire to save Ukraine under Zelenskyy.”

From the podium to sanctions

Mendel was Zelenskyy’s press secretary from 2019 to 2021. In a May 2026 interview with US podcaster Tucker Carlson, she called him one of the biggest obstacles to peace. Citing people who represented Ukraine at the 2022 Istanbul talks with Russia, she claimed Zelenskyy had agreed to give up Donbas, the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn denied the claim, saying she had taken no part in the talks.

On 16 September, she was barred from the European Parliament building and gave her speech online. Germany’s far-right AfD had invited her to the event, Der Spiegel reported.

The SBU says it is taking “comprehensive measures” to bring her to justice but has not specified them. For now, the case is a notice served in absentia, with her statements in foreign media and on social media among its grounds.