An occupation ‘court’ in Kherson oblast has sentenced 47-year-old Eldar Karamurzaev to eight years for involvement on Ukrainian territory in a civic organization which is perfectly legal in Ukraine. Karamurzaev is the thirtieth Crimean Tatar or other Ukrainian to be subjected to such savage reprisals by the Russian invaders for having opposed Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea and actively supported the entirely legitimate Crimean blockade initiated in September 2015.
Eldar Karamurzaev, who has disability status, due to congenital cerebral palsy, and walks with difficulty, is originally from Dzhankoi in northern Crimea. He and his family (he has four children) left Crimea after Russia’s invasion in 2014 and first settled in Zhytomyr in Western Ukraine. They later moved to Novoolesiivka in Kherson oblast, to be closer to Crimea.
Although news of his arrest was only reported by Eskender Bariev, Head of the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, on 24 March 2025, he had been seized a full month earlier. This was after a so-called ‘search’ of his home, during which the invaders removed Karamurzaev’s car and the papers for it. As is all too often the case, his family had spent most of the month desperately trying to find out where Eldar was being held.
By 24 March, it was clear that Karamurzaev had become the latest victim of one of Russia’s conveyor-belt prosecutions, namely charges of ‘involvement’ in the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion and in the civic blockade of Crimea. The latter was initiated in September 2015 by Crimean Tatar leaders with specifically human rights demands. Despite its name, the Battalion was, in fact, an unarmed formation, founded on 1 January 2016 by Crimean Tatar activist and businessman Lenur Islyamov, with the first members activists who had taken part in manning the blockade.
Moscow was infuriated by the Blockade and by all of its participants ultimate aim, namely the liberation from Russian occupation of Crimea. That objective, however, is in full accordance with the position of the UN’s General Assembly and international law, unlike Russia’s occupation and its politically motivated persecution of Ukrainian citizens. In all these cases, Russia falsely claims that involvement in the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion constitutes ‘participation in the activities of an armed formation, not envisaged by the legislation of that country and acting for purposes which are against the interests of the Russian Federation’ under Article 208 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code.
Not only was the Battalion never armed, but it was never in any way illegal in mainland Ukraine. Russia, by contrast, is both in violation of the Geneva Convention for applying its legislation on occupied territory, and in breach of basic principles of law since it is prosecuting Ukrainian citizens for (alleged) legal activities on Ukrainian territory over which Russia was not even claiming, at the time, to have jurisdiction.
By 1 June 2022, when Russia’s Supreme court labelled the peaceful formation ‘a terrorist organization’, the Battalion had effectively ceased to exist. This ruling has been used in the last year to bring grotesque ‘terrorism’ charges and massive (20-year sentences) against Ukrainian prisoners of war from the 48th Separate Assault Battalion, named after Noman Çelebicihan. While the Battalion is historically linked with the above civic organization, it arose in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and is part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and specifically the 123rd Territorial Defence Brigade.
Although at present, civilians are charged with the lesser Article 208 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code, there is no guarantee that this will continue, since the reports from 2022 suggested that the Supreme court did not really understand what it was, in fact, banning.
Eldar Karamurzaev was sentenced on 12 December 2025 to eight years maximum-security imprisonment, with the sentence handed down by an illegitimate occupation ‘court’ in Henichesk.
In reporting the sentence, Eskender Bariev noted that, at present, Russia is known to have seized 73 Ukrainian nationals on charges over the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion. 21 of these were against Ukrainians living in occupied Crimea, while 52 were of people seized from territory which came under occupation after 24 February 2022. Seven men from Crimea have been sentenced, while Karamurzaev is the thirtieth victim from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
