Russia bears full responsibility for Ibragim Kudzhanov’s death, and not only because it illegally imprisoned the 52-year-old from Luhansk oblast for having defended Ukraine in Donbas several years earlier. He should never have been imprisoned additionally because his state of health meant that any term of imprisonment was likely to be a death sentence. Russia’s brutality knows no limits, with Ibragim’s son, Artem Kudzhanov having been abducted as a teenager in October 2022, with this very likely also placing huge strain on his father’s state of health. Artem is also imprisoned in Russia, serving a 12-year sentence on absurd ‘spying’ charges which emerged after the young man had been held incommunicado and almost certainly tortured for three years.
The civic initiative Civilians in Captivity reported Ibragim Kudzhanov’s death on 8 July. His daughter Anna explained that the family had been informed of his death by telephone from the [prison] doctors, and that they had since gone through the procedure of identifying his body and receiving a death certificate. They understand that Ibragim suffered a second heart attack, but say that he also had an aneurysm (or abnormal bulge in the wall of an artery), and because of the grave deterioration in his condition, his kidneys had failed.
Ibragim Kudzhanov (b. 19.11.1973) would have gone through hell for over a year before learning that his son, who was just 19 when abducted by the Russians in October 2022 was alive. He himself was seized by men in uniform from hospital at the beginning of February 2024.
The charge against him could not have been more cynical. He was accused of ‘involvement’ in a terrorist organization, under Article 205.4 § 2 of Russia’s criminal code. This was because he served in the Aidar Battalion in 2018-2019. It seems that he had an auxiliary role, but that would not have deterred the aggressor state from accusing a Ukrainian serving in a Ukrainian unit defending his own country of ‘terrorism’.
Although the Aidar Battalion arose as a voluntary formation in response to Russia’s military aggression in 2014, it had, by 2015, been integrated into Ukraine’s Armed Forces and is now officially the 24th Separate Assault Battalion. Russia has, however, been persecuting both former veterans and prisoners of war from the Battalion since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and even orchestrated a ‘court’ ruling, passed by the Southern District Military Court, declaring members of the Ukrainian Army’s Aidar Battalion ‘a terrorist organization’. Not only was this a grotesquely inept attempt to justify Russia’s flagrant violation of its international commitments with respect to prisoners of war, but it also flouted fundamental principles of law since the ruling was only passed on 25 September 2023 and came into force two months later, on 22 November 2026. It is standardly used as purported ‘justification’ for imprisoning both civilians like Ibragim Kudzhanov who served in Aidar almost a decade ago and prisoners of war, in captivity since 2022.
Ibragim Kudzhanov had been well aware of the danger he was in as an Aidar veteran, and also feared for his sons, as the Russians were abducting men of conscription age. Having not managed to leave the area which had fallen under Russian occupation, Ibragim and his sons tried not to leave the building.
This was not, however, possible because of his serious health issues and regular inpatient hospital treatment. The Russians had taken him from a hospital bed and would have been fully aware of the condition he was in. This did not stop them from torturing him, using electric currents (through wires attached to the most delicate parts of the body).
Ibragim was held prisoner and doubtless tortured for several months, but then released, because of his condition, under a signed undertaking not to leave the village. There was nothing humane about this, with the Russian ‘enforcement officers’ almost certainly just concerned that he survive until the verdict. He was sentenced on 16 October 2024 to five and a half years’ imprisonment for having served years earlier in a division of Ukraine’s Armed Forces on Ukrainian territory.
On 10 April 2025, Artem Kudzhanov was sentenced by the occupation ‘Luhansk people’s republic high court’ to 12 years in a maximum-security prison colony. There is every reason to assume that he too had been subjected to torture. See: Russia passes copy-pasted 12-year ‘spying sentence almost three years after abducting Ukrainian teenager
