Parents and Children. How Russia Imprisons Entire Families in Annexed Crimea

The practice of mass searches and detentions in Crimea began after Russia annexed Ukrainian Crimea in 2014. But during the Russian military operations against Ukraine, trends have changed - more and more detentions are taking place on the serious charge of "high treason", and entire families can be imprisoned, Ukrainian human rights activists note. Court hearings in these cases are held behind closed doors, and their defendants are deprived of the opportunity to effectively defend themselves.

In at least 17 Crimean families, two to four of the people arrested and convicted were close relatives, Crimean human rights activist Lutfiye Zudiyeva previously told Suspilny.

In the Krim.Realii material, we talk about five verified cases of family detention for serious crimes.

Mother and daughter

In August, the Russian Sevastopol City Court sentenced 42-year-old Crimean resident Viktoria Strelec and her 24-year-old daughter Alexandra to 12 years in prison on charges of high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the city's Russian prosecutor's office said.

According to the investigation, the Crimean women allegedly sent photos of Russian military facilities to the State Service Administration (GUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry via messenger in September 2023.

Alexandra and Viktoria Strelec were detained by officers of the FSB Department of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, security officials report. But when this happened is unknown.

There is no public position from the State Service Administration of the Defense Ministry on the matter.

The judge of the Kremlin-controlled Sevastopol City Court, Danilo Zemlyakov, sentenced Viktoria and Alexandra Strelec to prison, despite the fact that Alexandra has two minor children who remain in the custody of her husband.

The convicted women from Crimea are being held in a general regime correctional colony, the Russian prosecutor's office in Sevastopol said.

"It is very difficult for my husband to collect food for me and my mother, and we have been on the rations they give us here for a month now. I gave cigarettes a couple of times and some food in August. But I am not asking for anything for myself. It is important for me to get the children out, because the baby (the youngest daughter - ed.) is fighting for her life," the Russian human rights project "First Department" quotes a letter from Alexandra Strelec from the detention center.

Spouses

In October, Russian security forces conducted a search and detained four women from Crimea on charges of organizing the activities of a terrorist organization (Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Among those detained was Esma Nimetulaeva, a mother of five children from Bakhchisaray.

She is the wife of Remzi Nimetulaeva, a person from the fifth Bakhchisaray group of the "Hizb ut-Tahrir case", who was detained by Russian security forces in August 2023 on charges of participating in a Muslim organization banned in Russia.

He has since been detained in SIZO-1 in Rostov-on-Don. His case is being considered by the Military Court of the Southern District of the Russian Federation. Ukrainian and Russian human rights activists call such cases politically motivated.

Thus, five young children lost their parents. They live with their 73-year-old grandmother, Aliya Bekirova, Esma Nimetulaeva's mother.

"I was told (by Russian security forces - op. ed.): 'Stay with your grandchildren as a grandmother, you can apply for custody.' "They said that if there is no guardian, the state can take away the children. I replied that I will not give the children to anyone. Since they took away their father, I will take care of my grandchildren," she told Crimean Solidarity.

In the spring of 2024, a couple, Sergey Kozlov and Yevgenia Samoilova, disappeared in Kerch.

It later emerged that they were being tried in the Russian Federation on charges of "terrorism", "treason" and alleged cooperation with the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Their position in this case is not known. In particular, they are accused of setting fire to cars with Z and V symbols (symbols of the Russian Federation's complete invasion of Ukraine - KR), preparing to blow up railway tracks in Crimea and killing a Russian soldier in Sevastopol.

According to human rights activists, the couple is being held in a detention center, and court hearings are being held at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don.

“Given the complete lack of information about this case before it was brought to trial, the widespread practice of kidnapping and torture by FSB officers, the denial of access to lawyers for suspects and defendants, as well as the tendency to fabricate evidence that is not subject to critical assessment in Russian courts, the validity of the accusations of the Kerch residents raises obvious doubts,” the human rights project “Tribunal. Crimean Episode” states.

The whole family

In March, after a search in Yevpatoria, Russian security forces detained a family of four: Tatyana Malyar, her son Anatoly Rosikhin, and daughter Olga Begey, as well as her brother Valentin Malyar. They were charged with “high treason.”

“This is the largest such case to date, where four members of a family were detained at once,” says Olga Skripnik, coordinator of the Crimean Human Rights Group.

The detained family is originally from Lviv and moved to Crimea before Russia’s annexation in 2014. Olga Begey has two minor children. This circumstance may be the reason for the persecution of these people, their relatives and acquaintances believe.

For a long time, nothing was known about the detainees. This is a “well-known trick” of Russian security forces, when in the first days after detention they torture people in order to get the necessary testimony, notes Refat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.

According to him, the entire detained family is charged under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (high treason). They are all being held in Simferopol Detention Center No. 2.

“The article on high treason is a completely closed criminal case. And in all such cases, we have noted that in the initial stages, even if relatives try to hire independent lawyers, they are not allowed access to people, which is a gross violation of the same Russian legislation,” Olga Skripnik told Krim.Realii.

Father and son

Russian authorities in the occupied part of the Kherson region are persecuting a Crimean Tatar family for alleged ties to the Crimean Tatar battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhikan and the Crimean Battalion. As a result, the father and son - Khalil and Apaz Kurtamet - ended up in Russian torture chambers.

Apaz Kurtamet was detained by Russian security forces in July 2022 in the Kherson region. At the time, the young man was 19 years old. He was sent to a detention center in the annexed Crimea, and then put on trial. After the trial, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for lending 500 hryvnia to his classmate. It later turned out that the classmate to whom he lent the money served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

 

Russian security forces and experts involved in the trial in this case considered such actions of Apaz Kurtamet as "financing" the Crimean Battalion. He was first sent to a colony in the Russian city of Vladimir. Then to Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Pskov.

Since November 2023, Russian authorities have been prosecuting Apaz Kurtamet, the father of 58-year-old businessman and local religious leader Khalil Kurtamet, on charges of participating in the Crimean Tatar battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhikhan.

The Genichesk district court, established by Russia, in the occupied part of the Kherson region, sentenced him in October to eight years in prison on charges of participating in a civil blockade of the delivery of Ukrainian goods to Russian-annexed Crimea in 2015.

Khalil Kurtamet's current whereabouts are unknown, even to his family. The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people says that the persecution of father and son Kurtamet "manifests all the chaos with which the occupation authorities are acting to take revenge on everyone for their disagreement with the occupation, resistance and blockade of Crimea."

 

Brothers

Russia’s repressive practices in Crimea are spreading to the territory of southern Ukraine, which Russia occupied during the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, three brothers from the village of Chongar, Genichesk district, Kherson region – Artur, Arsen and Ablamed Memetshayev – are in Russian custody.

They were detained by Russian security forces and sentenced in annexed Crimea for their alleged involvement in the Noman Chelebidzhikhan battalion, which participated in the civil blockade of Crimea in 2015-2016.

In April 2022, the eldest of the brothers, Artur Memetshayev, a father of six children, was detained. He was charged under Article 208 of Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of an illegal armed formation or participation in it).

In May 2023, the remaining Memetshayev brothers were detained and arrested on the same charges.

As a result, the Kiev District Court, which is under Russian control, convicted all three. Artur Memetshayev was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. He is serving his sentence in Mordovia. Arsen and Ablyamed Memetshayev were sentenced to five years in prison. The former is in a colony in the Russian city of Lipetsk, and the latter in Dimitrovgrad (Ulyanovsk region of the Russian Federation).

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center considers these persecutions to be "revenge by the occupiers for the civil blockade of Crimea." According to them, the case against the Memetshayevs was "falsified based on the testimony of three hidden witnesses."

“For the Memetshayev family, participation in the civil blockade of Crimea ended with the arrest of all three sons. Three searches, three criminal cases, three verdicts. Isn’t that a lot of repression for one family? The Crimean Tatar Resource Center expresses a strong protest and states that this court decision is illegal, politically motivated and criminal. Such a policy of Russia is a demonstration of the fight against the political beliefs of citizens in the occupied Crimea,” the Crimean Tatar Resource Center states.

There may be more such cases in Crimea, human rights activists suggest. But not all of them can be recorded and not all of them can be said publicly.

Many Crimeans, who are searched by Russian security forces, are afraid to reveal this in the hope that their relatives will be released, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center notes. Human rights activists learn about some searches after six months or a year, they add.

The Russian authorities deny political persecution in Crimea.