Russian FSB abduct Crimean couple, place their child in care
Another abduction has been reported in occupied Crimea, with this one, as a prominent human rights defender puts it, haven’t descended to a new low. The Russian FSB have seized a Ukrainian couple, Oleh and Natalia, with their nine-year-old child taken from school and placed in care. There may be situations where a child’s trauma is less than the danger that its parents would pose if not detained, but this is something quite different. The secrecy still now, almost two months after their seizure, and the complete lack of concern for their child, are more chillingly reminiscent of Stalin’s Terror.
Eskender Bariev, Head of the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, first reported this latest enforced disappearance on 2 June 2025. According to their source, Natalia took the child, seemingly a boy, to school in occupied Sevastopol on 9 April. After just the second less, the head of the school received a phone call informing that the parents would not be picking up the child and that a ‘police officer’ will come and take him to the juvenile care facility.
Nobody has seen Natalia since 9 April and there is no information about her whereabouts. Natalia’s husband, Oleh, was in Alushta for work, and was seized in the apartment he was renting. Eight FSB officers took him away,, with no indication given as to where. The Director of the firm for which Oleh works was told that he had been detained under a political article (of the criminal code), but not which one. Friends have approached the FSB but received no information, just the hint that the case is political and that they would be well advised to not raise a fuss and to not stick their nose in where they shouldn’t. Neither Natalia or Oleh answer phone calls, however their telephones periodically appear on the Internet in the evening.
As Bariev says, the child must be going through hell. When he asks when he will be taken from the care unit, when he’ll be able to go home, and why he’s there, and where are his parents, he gets told that the people in the care unit know nothing. They know only that he will be there for at least six months until the parents’ ‘status’ has been established.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre can only monitor the situation and ensure that information is passed on to international organizations, etc. They will, for example, be filing a report with the UN’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Russia brought such enforced disappearances to Crimea in 2014, with very many in the first eight years of Russian occupation vanishing without trace, and very likely killed. . There were also effective abductions, where the Crimean Tatar or other Ukrainian was savagely tortured and threatened, but was, finally, released.
Over the last year or so, Crimeans have vanished, with the occupation enforcement’ bodies refusing to provide any information. In many cases, nothing is known about the Ukrainian’s detention until an occupation ‘court’ passes a massive sentence behind closed doors.
Serhiy Hrishchenkov
Serhiy Hrishchenkov was abducted by FSB officers who burst into his home in occupied Sevastopol during the night on 6 May. Without any explanation, they carried out a search of the home and then took Hrishchenkov away. Hrishchenkov, is an IT specialist who had never concealed his pro-Ukrainian position. He is seemingly accused of ‘treason’, however no actually criminal proceedings have been lodged.
Hrishchenkov’s daughter, Darya, has explained to Suspilne Crimea that she received a message from a telephone belonging to her late grandfather saying to ring immediately. It was her mother, whose own phone the FSB had taken. She explained that Hrishchenkov was accused by the FSB of ‘state treason’, but couldn’t say any more as the FSB men had forced her to sign a non-disclosure undertaking. It seems that, during the search, the men first looked everywhere for Darya’s 18-year-old brother and then, very aggressively, demanded to know where he is. The young man is, thankfully, safe, having first left occupied Crimea for Kyiv and now begun studying abroad. He is, however, devastated over his father’s abduction.
Very little is known about these family members who were abducted after ‘searches’ were carried out of four homes during the night from 21 to 22 March 2025 in Yevpatoria. Even Olha Behei was taken away, although she has two small children (11-year-old Alisa, and Ruslan, who is just 7).
There was a total information vacuum for a week and then it became known that the four were being held in SIZO-2, one of the remand prisons in occupied Simferopol which Russia created after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There remains next to no information, however the FSB do appear to be accusing them of ‘treason’.
Friends of Tetiana Maliar and the others have told Refat Chubarov, Chair of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, that the family may have been targeted by the FSB because they are originally from Lviv, in Western Ukraine.
62-year-old Tamara Chernukha disappeared on 5 February 2025, with the Russian FSB and ‘police’ in occupied Crimea clearly knowing where the 62-year-old ambulance paramedic is, but refusing to say. Tamara’s relatives have learned through unofficial sources that she is being held in a SIZO, with the charge being of ‘state treason’. Chernukha has serious health issues, and the conditions in any SIZO, when the family are not able to pass on food and medication, put her life and health in danger.
Nothing is known about the whereabouts of 45-year-old Anatoliy Kobzar, although the Russian FSB were clearly involved in his enforced disappearance 15 months ago. Here too, it is likely that Kobzar was targeted because of his pro-Ukrainian position. His family last saw him on 5 March 2024 when he set off for work in Sevastopol. The following day, a search was carried out of his home, with the FSB looking for and removing Kobzar’s Ukrainian documents. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre [CTRC], the home of friends was also subjected to a search, with the FSB looking for documents concerning Kobzar.
Ismail Shemshedinov who was then 28, was taken away on 26 January 2024, when armed and masked FSB officers burst into his family’s home in Crimea. The young man is married, and the couple’s baby daughter was just three months old when he disappeared. No explanation was provided nor information about his whereabouts, though it is now believed that he is held in SIZO No. 2 in Simferopol.
Lera Dzhemilova, then also 28, was taken from her home by Russian FSB officers on 21 May 2024, and disappeared. It was only in March 2025 that the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre learned through their own sources that she too is imprisoned in SIZO No. 2 and is, seemingly, facing ‘treason’ charges.