Russia’s Southern District Military Court has sentenced Seiran Asanov to 20 years’ maximum-security imprisonment. It chose to accept the prosecution’s claim that the 43-year-old Crimean Tatar prisoner of war’s service in a unit of Ukraine’s Armed Forces constituted ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’. This is not the first time that Russia has used a politically motivated supreme court ruling from 1 June 2022 as pretext for such illegal trials of Ukrainian prisoners of war. There was, however, another chilling aspect to this prosecution, namely that Asanov was also charged with ‘treason’, under Article 275. This means that he has Russian citizenship, almost certainly obtained while he was living on occupied territory in Zaporizhzhia oblast. The aggressor state has made it virtually impossible to not take such citizenship but then uses it as excuse for claiming that a Ukrainian citizen committed ‘treason’ by defending his own country against an invading power.
According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, Seiran Asanov (b. 13.08.1982) was taken prisoner on 18 October 2024 in Donetsk oblast and was held in prisons on occupied territory before being taken to Rostov for the ‘trial’.
The Southern District Military Court’s press service reported the sentence on 2 April 2026. Asanov was charged with ‘treason’, under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code); with ‘involvement in a terrorist organization’ (Article 205.5 § 2) and with ‘undergoing training in terrorist activities’ (Article 205.3). It was claimed that he had “decided to go over to the side of the enemy and voluntarily join the Ukraine’s Armed Forces”. This was, purportedly, in order to take part in what is claimed to be “a terrorist Crimean Tatar volunteer battalion”, although the press service report openly acknowledges that this is, in fact, the 48th Separate Assault Battalion named after Noman Çelebicihan. This was formed in 2023 as part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and specifically the 123rd Territorial Defence Brigade. Russia is, therefore, flagrantly violating the Third Geneva Convention which prohibits it from prosecuting Ukrainian prisoners of war merely for having been combatants. Asanov had been assigned to the 48th Separate Assault Battalion in August 2024 and was taken prisoner while defending his country as a soldier.
Despite this, he was sentenced to 20 years’ maximum-security imprisonment, with the first five years in a prison, the harshest of Russia’s penal institutions. The court’s website concealed Asanov’s name, however the case appears to have been heard by ‘judge’ Aleksandr Vasilievich Generalov. The latter has been involved in politically motivated sentences against Ukrainian POWs and political prisoners for several years, and he did not, unfortunately, choose this trial to remember his oath and the requirements of international law.
Russia has used subservient courts to issue several rulings claiming this or that structural unit of Ukraine’s Armed Forces to be a ‘terrorist organization’ with such flawed rulings then being the sole excuse for sentencing prisoners of war to huge terms of imprisonment. The situation in this case is somewhat different given a critical, and likely deliberate, lack of clarity as to what exactly was outlawed by Russia’s supreme court on 1 June 2022.
The Russian supreme court ruling on 1 June 2022 declared the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion a ‘terrorist organization’. Despite its name, the Battalion was an unarmed civic organization, founded on 1 January 2016, with the first members people who had taken part in the civic blockade of occupied Crimea. Russia’s persecution of Crimean Tatars on charges linked with alleged involvement in the Battalion back in early 2018. Although all such ‘trials’ were manifestly illegal, there was no suggestion of so-called ‘terrorism’. The person was charged under Article 208 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code (“taking part in the activities of an illegal armed formation, acting on the territory of a foreign state for purposes which are against the interests of the Russian Federation”).
Although the Battalion had ceased to exist, there was a huge increase in such prosecutions after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the Russian invaders using the charge as pretext for abducting Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians from occupied Kherson oblast and fabricating charges against them.
There was no other ‘Noman Çelebicihan Volunteer Battalion’ back on 1 June 2022, and it was clear from Russian media reports at that time that the ruling was based on an application from the Russian prosecutor general referring to the civic blockade.
Russia continued to escalate its persecution of men alleged to have been members of the Battalion, but still under Article 208 § 2, with sentences guaranteed, but, at least, shorter than those handed down for supposed ‘terrorism’.
Although Russia still does abduct civilians and charge them under Article 208 § 2, it has, since 2025, been using the 1 June 2022 ruling as a pretext for bringing ‘terrorism’ charges against Ukrainian prisoners of war from the 48th Separate Assault Battalion, named after Noman Çelebicihan. In short, Russia is using a ruling outlawing a civic organization, which no longer existed back in 2022, as pretext for persecuting prisoners of war who were seized as part of a battalion of Ukraine’s Armed Forces which did not exist at the time it is now claimed to have been outlawed. The confusion is clearly deliberate, with grotesque ‘terrorism’ charges having already been used to bring sentences of 14-20 years against Serhiy Yatskov; Ihor Varchuk; Bohdan Musikhin; Yevhen Batoh; Ivan Kovbasiuk; Mykyta Kucher; Oleh Miruk; Ivan Perepelitsa; Dmytro Stadnikov; Yevhen Tolstoy;; Volodymyr Volsky; Serhiy Vorseniuk; Oleksandr Yevdokimenko and, now, Seiran Asanov.
These appalling travesties of justice are used by Russian state propaganda media to refer to Ukrainians defending their country as ‘terrorists’. On 13 February 2026, the renowned Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project declared the above-mentioned prisoners of war from the 48th Separate Assault Battalion, as well as Yuriy Tsiupak, whose ‘trial’ is underway, political prisoners. Seiran Asanov, who has a five-year-old daughter, should also be added to this list.
