Crimean resident imprisoned in Lefortovo for donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Crimean resident Oleksandr Kachkurkin, who donated to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and worked in Kazakhstan, was actually handed over to the Russian special services after the decision to deport him. In Russia, he faces life imprisonment for "high treason," while Ukraine has not yet confirmed his citizenship.

This was reported by Slidstvo.info.

Oleksandr Kachkurkin is a native of Ukrainian Crimea, who automatically received Russian citizenship after the occupation of the peninsula by Russia. After the start of the full-scale invasion, the man moved to Kazakhstan, where he worked in the IT sector and, according to his mother, supported Ukraine and donated to the Armed Forces.

In January 2026, a court in Almaty ordered his deportation from Kazakhstan after two administrative offenses. His mother Svitlana claims that the case could have been falsified, and the violations themselves were trivial - crossing the road in the wrong place and staying in a hookah bar, although he did not even smoke.

After the trial, Oleksandr did not return home. According to his mother, he was detained on the territory of Kazakhstan by FSB officers who accompanied him to Moscow. There, he was arrested under the article on "high treason" for providing financial assistance to Ukraine. The sanction of the article provides for 12 years in prison to life imprisonment.

Currently, Kachkurkin is being held in the Lefortovo detention center in Moscow, which is controlled by the Russian Federal Security Service and is considered one of the most closed detention centers in Russia. Mykhailo Savva, an expert at the Center for Civil Liberties, said that Kazakhstan and Russia actually acted together, and the deportation of the Ukrainian was illegal.

An additional problem was that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has not yet confirmed the citizenship of Oleksandr Kachkurkin. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that a birth certificate is not a document that automatically confirms citizenship, and due to the occupation of Crimea, information about the man was not included in the state demographic register.

Oleksandr's mother claims that in 2022, her son tried to apply to the Ukrainian embassy in Kazakhstan for documents, but was rudely refused. Experts emphasize that without the official recognition of Ukrainian citizenship, the chances of returning the man through exchange or international mechanisms are much lower.

In early May, the Crimean journalist Vilen Temeryanov, convicted in Russia, was taken from SIZO-1 in Rostov-on-Don to a hospital. Russian security forces detained him in 2022 on charges of participating in Hizb ut-Tahrir and allegedly preparing a sabotage in Crimea on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence.

Анна Бальчінос