Oleh Plachkov turned 56 on 15 May 2026, his third birthday imprisoned without charge in Russian captivity. His family do not know where the Russians are holding him, nor what state he is in, and his daughter Liudmyla has every reason to worry. Oleh was abducted in September 2023, together with his wife Tetiana Plachkova. She was just 51 when she died, several months later, with it likely at very least that her death was caused by the Russian’s failure to provide proper medical care, if not by the torture to which both Tetiana and her husband were probably subjected. It was Tetiana whom the invaders appear to have accused of ‘spying’, with this making it especially disturbing that he was not released immediately and that the Russians have not admitting to holding him. It is the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre who have reason to believe that he is imprisoned in SIZO-8, one of two remand prisons in occupied Crimea opened soon after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Tetiana and Oleh were well-known in Melitopol where they ran two cafés and Tetiana took part in different city activities before Russia seized control of the city in the early days of the war. Liudmyla has since explained that she and her husband left after the invasion, but her parents felt that they could not leave their parents, and her mother hoped that the city would soon be liberated. Her parents loved their country, she stresses, and her mother made no attempt to conceal her opposition to the Russian occupation.
Tragically, no more is needed to end up targeted by the Russian invaders. Armed men, seemingly from Russia’s FSBburst into the family’s home during the night from 25 to 26 September 2023. They locked Tetiana’s mother away in a separate room , while handcuffing both Tetiana and Oleh and taking them away. Two men remained and carried out a search, removing telephones and documents.
The Russians had assured Tetiana’s mother that the couple would soon be freed. This proved to be a lie, with the Russians instead turning up, searching and interrogating the couple’s employees, warning that they might be called upon to testify against them in a so-called ‘court’.
There was no information at all about Oleh and Tetiana for around six months. In February 2024, Liudmyla found out through her own sources that her mother was in a coma in an intensive care unit of Melitopol hospital. She was in an infectious diseases ward because she had covid, however the doctors do not seem to have known why she was in a comma. They were, however, convinced, from her extensive bed sores, etc., that the Russians had failed to bring her to hospital immediately and had held her in this condition somewhere else.
There was a so-called investigator who originally prevented Tetiana’s mother from seeing her, though later she was allowed to visit her daughter who remained in a comma even after the covid had passed.
Tetiana Plachkova died on 23 May 2024, although the Russians even lied about this, claiming that she died in July. The death certificate mentioned pneumonia; fluid on the brain; and pulmonary edema, without any explanation as to what had caused such a condition.
The ‘investigator’ had appointed a ‘lawyer’ for Tetiana - Olena Shapovalova, one of a relatively small number of lawyers who were willing to collaborate with the occupiers and who was, for this reason, stripped of her licence in Ukraine. Shapovalova stopped contacting the family immediately after Tetiana’s death, with the criminal ‘investigation’ into the so-called ‘spying’ charges terminated.
There is no way of knowing what exactly the ‘spying’ charges against Tetiana Plachkova involved. ‘Spying’ charges have, however, become the default option against a large percentage of the civilian hostages whom the Russians seize because of their pro-Ukrainian position, their former position, relatives in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, etc.
What is important now is that the claims appear to have only pertained to Tetiana Plachkova and not to her husband. It is, therefore, extremely worrying that Oleh Plachkov remains imprisoned, with no official status nor even acknowledgement that he is being held. This means also that he has no access to a lawyer, nor any contact with his family. Publicity is vital in order to force Russia to at least admit where Oleh is held and to allow his family to have contact with them.
