Armed Russian enforcement officers burst into the office of several well-known Crimean Tatar lawyers at around 10 a.m. on 11 December 2025. Despite bringing only a warrant to ‘inspect’ the offices, they carried out a full search, removing confidential legal files, while effectively holding the lawyers prisoner for four hours. While this was not the first time that lawyers, tirelessly defending political prisoners, have come under attack, the claimed pretext for the ‘inspection’ was especially sinister. Russia has been using profoundly flawed ‘terrorism’ charges as a weapon aimed at crushing the Crimean Solidarity human rights movement since 2017, with a significant number of the movement’s civic journalists and activists serving or facing sentences of up to 20 years. The warrant for the so-called ‘inspection’ on 11 December claimed that there were grounds for suspecting lawyers defending these recognized political prisoners of similarly fictitious ‘terrorism’.
The effective raid on the lawyers’ offices was coordinated by Ruslan Shambazov, a notorious collaborator and the head of Russia’s so-called ‘centre for countering extremism’.
It was carried out in typically lawless fashion with Nazim Sheikhmambetov later recounting how three individuals, all dressed in sports clothes and caps, with bags over their shoulders, had first appeared at around 10.30 on Thursday morning. They claimed to be from the electricity company, with two of them pretending they needed to get readings, while the third openly took out a camera and began videoing. He tried to elbow his way into the premises, pushing the lawyers out. It was only when he was prevented by the lawyers from doing so that men from the occupation ‘police’ and ‘centre for countering extremism’ appeared, as well as others from the FSB and four or five ‘spetsnaz’ officers, with the latter armed, wearing masks and full combat gear. In total, Sheikhmambetov says, there were 10-12 men in their office.
The ‘extremism’ officers produced a warrant to ‘inspect’ the premises from Russia’s occupation ‘Crimean high court’, yet carried out a fully-fledged search, removing legal documents containing material which should be between lawyers and their clients. All of the lawyers’ technical devices were also scrutinized.
The lawyers present were: Nazim Sheikhmambetov; Edem Semedlyaev and his wife Elvina Semedlyaeva; Rustem Kyamilev and Lilya Hemedzhy. The Semedyaevs’ child was also in the offices, and the lawyers insisted that Elvina and the child be allowed to leave. Emil Kurbedinov arrived after the visitation began and was prevented from entering his own offices, while the lawyers insisted were prohibited from leaving and not allowed to use their telephones.
A protocol of this ‘inspection’ cum search was later drawn up with the lawyers pointing to the huge number of infringements in added comments and objections.
A similar search was carried out of a second office, with lawyers who also work there summoned. Emil Kurbedinov later explained to Crimean Solidarity that they had been shown the ‘high court’ warrant. This claimed, he said, that he and other lawyers “are suspected of some kind of terrorist activities. And on the basis of that they simply began rummaging about in our lawyers’ dossiers. And when I asked them to explain where the logic was, why they were looking at our legal dossiers and legal activities, nobody could provide any comprehensible answer. “ This, he adds, is yet the latest attempt at intimidation, at pressure on lawyers.
“We are not terrorists, that is certain. We are the ones who call for the law to be observed, with that the total opposite of crimes. Yet we are persecuted for that, this is the absurdity”.
Russia began its attacks on lawyers defending Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners back in 2016. On that occasion, the ‘centre for countering extremism’ tried to get into the lawyers’ officers.
They then came for Emil Kurbedinov on 26 January 2017, with the lawyer himself detained and his home searched by armed and masked men. He was sentenced by an occupation ‘court’ to a ten-day term of imprisonment, supposedly over a video he had posted, quite legally, back in 2013.
See: Enemy No. 1 for Exposing Lawlessness & Repression in Russian-occupied Crimea
Both Crimean Solidarity and Emil Kurbedinov came under open attack in 2018, with officers burst in on public meetings of the human rights movement, and also turning up at the lawyer’s offices.
Then in December 2018, Kurbedinov was detained a second time and imprisoned for a further five days over the same innocuous and pre-occupation video as in January 2017.
Russia has since used arrests and brief terms of imprisonment, as well as illegally stripping lawyers of their licence in attacks on virtually all of the lawyers targeted on 11 December and others.
Nazim Sheikhmambetov, Lilia Hemedzhy and Rustem Kyamilev
Rustem Kyamilev was later jailed briefly on preposterous charges
Crimean Tatar lawyer jailed in Russian terror against defenders of political prisoners
Edem Semedlyaev
Crimean Tatar lawyer jailed and fined for defending client and refusing to strip naked
Alexei Ladin
