The FSB in Crimea is staging the arrest of civilians who were abducted long ago for the sake of reporting
The FSB office in occupied Crimea stages the “detention” of Ukrainian citizens who have in fact been abducted and held in isolation for months or over a year. In videos released in August and September 2026, the so-called “newly uncovered traitors” are dressed in winter jackets, coats, and woolen hats, despite the 30-degree heat on the peninsula.
Human rights activists explain this by saying that Russian special services are “dusting off” hostages who were captured long ago to artificially meet their semi-annual and annual quotas for exposing spies.
Among the victims were 71-year-old Hanna Sotsenko and her 52-year-old daughter Oksana Sotsenko, who were abducted from their home in early 2025 and held in complete isolation for over 9 months without trial, access to lawyers, or contact with their families. It was not until September 2026 that they were charged with a fabricated offense of photographing the invaders’ vehicles. Also, since 2025, 58-year-old Valentin Malyar and his 52-year-old sister Tetyana Malyar have been detained; their arrest was announced a year and a half later, while a 59-year-old former border guard from Foros was sentenced to 18 years in prison for allegedly passing on a photograph of a building.
Civilians on the occupied peninsula—regardless of age, gender, or profession—are falling victim to such fabricated charges. Security forces intimidate the relatives of prisoners and hold detainees in the Simferopol pretrial detention center, using them to meet quotas in reports on the fight against “treason.”
This was reported by Semaat.
As a reminder, the complete and ongoing isolation of the temporarily occupied Crimea, as well as the systematic deprivation of fuel and electricity for Russian troops, could force the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table or begin withdrawing its army.
As a reminder, the ATR television channel, with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, is implementing a cultural and educational project, as part of which historian Valery Vozgrin’s seminal work “History of the Crimean Tatars” will be published in Ukrainian for the first time.
