.png)
“I’ve been hearing questions like ‘Whose Crimea is it?’ for ten years.” A monologue by Andriy Kolomiyets, a released political prisoner, about the Maidan, a Russian prison, and the basement a
Source: Grati
Author: Anastasia Moskvichova
November 19, 2025, 12:16 p.
m. 40 20-minute read
Anastasia Moskvichova
Maidan activist Andriy Kolomiets, who served ten years in prison on politically motivated charges in Russia. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
Maidan activist Andriy Kolomiets, who served ten years in prison on politically motivated charges in Russia. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
Andriy Kolomiyets is a Maidan activist whom Russia detained in 2015 in Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus while he was traveling to meet his future wife; and convicted him, accusing him of allegedly attacking two members of the “Berkut” special police unit in Kyiv during the protests. He was tried in occupied Crimea; the case attracted widespread attention—the prosecution was led by the controversial prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya.
In January 2025, he was released after 10 years in prison, but was immediately detained again and placed in a temporary detention center for foreign nationals.
It was only six months later that authorities agreed to repatriate Kolomiets to Ukraine via Georgia, but he ended up in a basement at the “Dariali” checkpoint, where deported Ukrainians—whose cases were being reviewed by the embassy—were effectively held indefinitely. And when he finally crossed the Ukrainian border, he was detained for seven hours at the border control center.
Andriy Kolomiets told “Gratam” about how Russian security forces fabricated his case, about the intrigues of the prison administration and recruiters for the Wagner Group, about other politicalhe met while in captivity, as well as what he faced in the months following his return home.
We are publishing his monologue.
“I didn’t know I would be persecuted”
I just saw [a video] of what was happening on Independence Square: “Berkut” officers beating students and women. I just decided to go. Nobody called me or anything.
I’d come and go. You couldn’t stay there for long because they were spraying us with water—we were freezing, all our clothes were wet, and there were other things too. Especially since I live a hundred kilometers from Kyiv—not far.
I was hit by a grenade—that’s what happened. It was a flash-bang grenade with screws, nuts, and pieces of metal taped on with duct tape, and when it exploded, everything flew off in all directions. I was wounded in the leg back then. Not that badly, but my leg was injured. This happened on Hrushevsky Street, around that time (January–February 2014). Near the “Dnipro” hotel. There’s even a video somewhere online where I’m lying there in a blue jacket with “Marlboro” written on it, and they’re helping me up…
Clashes between protesters and security forces on Hrushevsky Street during Euromaidan, January 2014. Photo: Yevhen Feldman, Hrati
I didn’t know that I would be persecuted [in Russia], that I could be arrested and jailed just for being a participant in Euromaidan. Yes, I went there on my own because I’d met Galina and went to see her. Of course, it’s my own fault; a lot of people are bashing me for it now. But who among us doesn’t make mistakes in life, you know?
First of all, there were—I remember—probably two million people on the Maidan—and they’re going to lock us all up? That’s ridiculous. And if only I’d actually killed someone there or done something like that—but I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary there. That’s why I went.
Maidan, January 2014. Photo: Yevgeny Feldman, Grati
“We have information that you’re a ‘sleeper cell’”
They [in Russia] initially thought I was an agent: that I’d come to stage a coup in the Caucasus. I took a lie detector test; they asked me which intelligence agency I worked for, and all that.
First, I got a call telling me to report to the FSB building located at the train station. I had just arrived. What FSB building? At the train station? I thought it was some kind of joke. I said, “Summon me officially—I’ll come.”
But no one officially summoned me, and then two months later the “masked men” (special forces) showed up—and that was it. They came in; I opened the gate for them. They pinned me to the ground in the yard and went inside to search the house. In Galina’s house, they found a small amount of dried wild grass in her ex-husband’s safe. I said, “That’s not mine; I don’t know the code or have the key to that safe—I didn’t have anything like that.”
And that was it—they took me in for questioning. Or, as they put it, for a three-hour “interview.” They handcuffed me and put me in a car. In the car, they put a bag over my head—and off we went. Just a regular black bag. Well, so I couldn’t see where I was going.
They didn’t identify themselves; they had no insignia. “SOBR”—from the Russian “special rapid response unit”—was written on some of the special forces officers’ uniforms, but otherwise… Later I found out that [they were] representatives of the FSB, Center “E” for combating extremism and terrorism.
They started interrogating me right away. “What, why, how, how many of you came?”—“But I came alone.” —“That can’t be.” I said, “I came to see my girlfriend. We met, and I came to see her.” “No,” they said, “you came here to stage a coup; we have information that you’re a ‘sleeper cell’—something like that.”
And at that moment—I was young and inexperienced—I argued back and cursed at them, which just made them even angrier. They started running me through these lie detectors, dragged me down to the basement, shocked me with electricity, and did all sorts of things.
About a day later, they told me—I think it was in the Donetsk or Luhansk region, I don’t remember which—that I had supposedly shot a family there. I said, “Never in my life.” First of all, I’m not in the military. And second, I’ve never been to either Donetsk or Luhansk. I’m not signing anything.
But they wanted to pin something on me just to lock me up. Then they started going on about my participation in the Maidan, about the “Berkut” officers—that I supposedly set them on fire there… But I didn’t set anyone on fire, I said. Where’s the evidence, the testimony, any official documents? In short, I told them again: I won’t sign anything. They took me back to the basement, then—electric shocks, beatings.
Then I finally agreed to sign blank sheets of paper—completely blank—and let them rewrite it to say that, yes, I was on the Maidan, but I didn’t set anyone on fire. In the end, I served my sentence for attacking “Berkut” unit on Hrushevsky Street, which I allegedly tried to set on fire with “Molotov cocktails.”
“I was sick of
this circus” At that point, I didn’t have a lawyer. A lawyer showed up more than a day later, after they’d already officially started building the case. They assigned me a public defender. I told this lawyer [what had happened to me], and she said: “There’s nothing you can do—it’s the system, and so on.” I also tried to tell the investigator—she was a young woman—something, to explain. But she was simply being pressured; she couldn’t do anything, even if she wanted to. The FSB is a more powerful agency.
Later, the Crimean Human Rights Group got in touch with my sister and my relatives—and they found me a lawyer in Moscow. He arrived when the trials were already underway. He arrived almost at the very end. He filed 208 or 210 different motions; eight or ten of them were accepted, and all the others were rejected. And that was it. There was simply a special decree. And Poklonska—former Ukrainian prosecutor Natalia Poklonska, who defected to Russia in 2014 and became the chief prosecutor of occupied Crimea; served in that position until 2016, participated in fabricating cases against Ukrainian citizens—in particular, film director Oleg Sentsov—and was also involved in banning the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People; she was my prosecutor.
Andriy Kolomiyets in a Russian court. Photo: Memorial
They just wanted to shut me down—that’s all. I was tried in Crimea, at the Kyiv District Court of Simferopol. The judge handed down my sentence, and then I had an appeal in Sevastopol.
At the appeal hearing, I said that I didn’t fully understand the language. The judge started speaking to me in Ukrainian. I answered her. But everything was being written down in Russian. I said, “Well, it should be written down the way we speak.” Well, anyway…
At the very end of the trial, when the defendant can state his position, I said, “I’m sick of this circus.” They got agitated and started threatening to add three more months to my sentence. “Go ahead and add them,” I said, it doesn’t matter anymore. I already knew they wouldn’t let me go.
They arrested me in Kabardino-Balkaria in Russia, where I spent three months. There were times at the beginning of my sentence when I was simply in despair and didn’t know what to do. I was imprisoned with Muslims—I was the only non-Muslim there—and I converted to Islam. Now, to be honest, I don’t practice it, I don’t pray, nothing. But that’s how it was.
Then they flew me to Simferopol. I was held at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol from August 13, 2015, to November 16, 2016—a year and three months.
Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol. Photo: Anton Naumlyuk, Grati
And from Simferopol, after the appeal had been heard, they upheld the sentence and sent me to the Krasnodar Krai—back to Russia.
“The beatings—at the hands of the inmates—were actually carried out by the administration itself.”
I had no one in Russia, and I had no choice but to take this stance: to complain about everything. And [Ukrainian] diplomats did a great deal for me. The former Consul General of the Rostov Region visited me many times. Lawyers also came to visit. And suddenly—I was complaining about all of this. The prison was supposed to be a “model facility,” and the administration didn’t want to receive any complaints. And even when there were beatings or acts of violence, they tried to either hide it or “cover it up” somehow—with visits or care packages. But the beatings—carried out by the inmates themselves—were actually orchestrated by the administration. There were all sorts of different situations.
The first few years, of course, were tough. But later, whenever someone came to visit, the warden or deputy warden would call me over: “What’s going on? Is there anything you need?” Something like that.
At times, if it hadn’t been for Galina—who came to visit on the eve of Andriy’s transfer from Crimea to a Russian penal colony—and if it hadn’t been for the consulate and the lawyers, I don’t know what would have become of me.
Political prisoner Andriy Kolomiyets. Photo from his Facebook page
Officially, I was allowed one short visit and one long visit every six months. A long visit lasts three days; a short one lasts three hours. This was under “strict detention conditions” (Russian: Строгие условия содержания, SUS)—a special regime in Russian penal colonies intended for inmates considered particularly dangerous or prone to escape or rule violations. Otherwise—under normal conditions—visits were allowed once every three months. Well, and sometimes, when, as they said, I behaved well, they’d allow something extra. But that happened only once or twice during my entire sentence.
Letters came in. Some, of course, didn’t make it through. But at the beginning of my sentence, I was probably getting two hundred letters a week. People wrote to me a lot—from all over the world, really: even before the full-scale invasion, I got letters from Ukraine, and otherwise—from Canada, Germany, all over Europe. People wrote from America. Russians wrote, as did human rights organizations. They also sent newspapers and postcards. I later collected the postcards, envelopes, and stamps—I had a collection.
I tried to reply every time. First of all, it was interesting, and second, people had gone to the trouble of writing, so I couldn’t just ignore them. Third, it helped me take my mind off things with different thoughts. That was one of the few positive aspects. Apart from all that chaos you saw, letters were something positive—like when you received a care package or when Galina came to visit.
Ukrainians in the prison colony and recruitment into the Wagner Group
In the Krasnodar Krai, there were Ukrainians in the prison camp who had been abducted from Kherson: there were about 250 people. There were Crimeans who were tried for “Hizb ut-Tahrir”: there were never any terrorists in Crimea under Ukrainian rule; once Russia arrived, “terrorists” appeared in Crimea. These were people who had lived there [for years] under Ukrainian rule. They planted banned Islamic literature on them—and imprisoned them.
When I was imprisoned in Crimea, many people were imprisoned precisely for this reason. Human rights activists were imprisoned. I met many of them there. At that time, Akhtem Chiygoz was being held in the Simferopol pretrial detention center, as was Emir-Usein Kuku.
The prisoners from Kherson were brought [to the penal colony in the Krasnodar Krai], if I’m not mistaken, in November 2022. Prior to that, in September, the “Wagner” PMC—a private military group incorporated into the Russian armed forces and led by Dmitry Utkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin; both of whom died in a plane crash in August 2023, two months after a conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense and an attempted armed mutiny—had taken more than two hundred people, and a couple of months later, they brought our people, whom the Russians had abducted for unknown reasons.
Russian military personnel in Kherson. Photo provided to the publication “Hrati” by Oleksandr Gerashchenko
Prigozhin came in person for the first time; they summoned everyone in the area to the club, and there, surrounded by security, he said he would take [anyone] who wanted to go. He just wouldn’t take rapists, or something like that. And then they took away more than 240 people. Overnight. KamAZ trucks arrived, loaded them in groups of fifty, and then they were flown to the Rostov region.
Recruiters kept coming back, right up until the very last moment. But then, toward the end of my sentence, representatives from the Russian Ministry of Defense arrived, because Wagner had already been killed.
“They made a jacket in the colors of the Russian flag; they wanted me to wear it when I left.”
In the penal colony, the inmates sewed jackets for railroad workers and work clothes for fishermen and hunters. And as for me, first of all, I’m not afraid to work, and second, I understood that if I worked, I’d be able to stay in touch with my relatives—at least call them sometimes—because the facility covered such a large area that if the police started searching the whole place, they’d wear themselves out. It’s harder to inspect than, for example, a residential section, a disciplinary isolation cell, or “strict detention conditions” (SDC). So I agreed to go to work, and I worked there for about two and a half years, and then they put me in “strict detention conditions”: because I was a participant in Euromaidan, they classified me as an extremist, and extremists and terrorists are required to be held in lockable cells.
It looks like a large cell designed to hold 50 people. There are two sections: a nighttime section and a daytime section. At night, there are beds on the upper level, and during the day, there are benches on the lower level where you can sit and watch TV. During the day, for example, you’re not allowed to lie down and sleep, because if you do, they’ll lock you up for 15 days [in solitary confinement].
I was transferred to “strict conditions” in 2021. At first, they latched onto the fact that I was late. I explained why I was late. But they told me, “Your hat isn’t on straight.” I adjusted my hat. Then they said, “You haven’t had a haircut.” In short, I realized they just wanted to crack down on me, and there was nothing I could do about it. The next day, they took me to a hearing [of the disciplinary committee], and I was given ten days [in solitary confinement], then another ten days, and then fifteen days with a transfer to the Special Security Unit (SSU). In this commission, the prison warden acts as the judge, and the prison administration is present.
I remained in the SUS until the end of my sentence, until January 15 of this year. I had a lawyer, Mikhail Benyash; he’s in Europe now because in Russia he’s labeled a “foreign agent”—he also defended all sorts of political prisoners. So, he was the one who defended me there at the very end, and he helped me “knock off” four months [from my sentence]. A year or a year and a half before my release, he came to visit; we wrote a letter to Moscow, and Moscow sent the case back to Krasnodar, saying, “Sort this out.” And then, just as they were about to make a decision, they revoked his law license. So he asked a friend to simply read aloud [in court] what he had written. In the end, my sentence was reduced by four months: two months on one charge and two months on the other.
And when they transferred me to the SUS, I didn’t have a lawyer. And I just realized that I was without a “bulletproof vest.” Because a lawyer is a “bulletproof vest” in cases like this. If you’re going to fight the administration, your lawyer needs to live right there at the colony. And if you’re without a lawyer, without any connections, there’s nothing you can do. They could even kill you there—they’ll just write that it was heart failure.
I’d been hearing questions like “Whose Crimea is it?” for ten years. At first, I argued with them, defending my position. Then one day Galina came for a visit and said, “They’re going to add time to your sentence right now; you’ll be serving even longer.” After that, I just kept quiet.
Andriy Kolomiets. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
And when Benyash arrived and said that Ukraine had recaptured Kherson—he leaned in and whispered it in my ear—I was so happy. I went back to the SUS—but there was nothing about it in the news there; they report things differently in their news. It wasn’t until a week later that Russia said they had “withdrawn to a more advantageous position.”
Toward the end of my sentence, the SUS was turned into a work camp; you could actually work there. And they started forcing everyone to choose: either go to the PKT—a cell-type facility—where conditions were even worse, or go to work. I knew how to sew on a sewing machine—I’d been sewing since the beginning of my sentence—so I went.
And there was an opportunity when the guys were being released: you could sew yourself a jacket. Well, I sort of made a deal with them; I didn’t think they’d make fun of me. But they sewed a jacket in the colors of the Russian flag—they wanted me to walk out wearing it. I refused. Of course, I got sick wearing just a sweater, but I just couldn’t do that. The administration did this on purpose so they could see me walking around in it on the cameras and laugh at me.
“I Bought a Phone Through the Police”
When Galina came to visit, she would tell me the news. We tried to play music so they wouldn’t record us. And this is how I communicated with my lawyer: I’d take a sheet of paper, write on it with a pencil, then erase it, then write over it. That’s because they were definitely wiretapping us—after all, they thought I was an agent. Second, if I said something wrong, the lawyer could face some kind of liability, because lawyers were being jailed for defending people like me.
If I managed to call home once every three or four months, I didn’t ask any questions—I understood that there could be problems.
My family couldn’t come visit me because my sister was on the Maidan with me, my brother-in-law was in the military, and my brother had been killed in the ATO.
I didn’t really want them to go there anyway; it would have been difficult [emotionally]: I was very thin, and I looked different than I do now. I simply couldn’t have bear my mother’s tears. That was my decision. Well, and I didn’t know what would happen to them if they came. They could have been arrested for something, too.
They didn’t let us make calls either, but I bought a phone through the police. I paid them to bring it to me. You could talk for a week or two, a month at most, and then the same people who brought it would take it away from you. There were no other options, and I wanted to call home. Sometimes I even managed to talk via video chat.
But you can’t hide a phone for long. Everyone hears you talking anyway, and then they turn you in.
The administration controlled everything—not just the phones. They were paid for it. I didn’t have that kind of money to pay them. But human rights activists helped a lot; people donated. If it weren’t for that, I would probably have come back without any teeth and in much worse health.
There was medical care there: they’d break a Citramon tablet in half, giving one half for stomach pain and the other for a headache. Or they’d say, “Pray—it’ll all pass.”
“I Didn’t End Up in the ‘Thousand’”
I was released at the end of my term. I wasn’t exchanged; I simply walked out when my sentence ended. They took me to the deportation center—the Center for Temporary Detention of Foreign Citizens in the village of Novoukrainka in the Krasnodar Region. They just handed me off from one police station to another, even though according to the paperwork, I was supposedly being released. And from January 15 to July 6 of this year, I was at the deportation center.
Basically, it was the same there as in prison—maybe a little better: you could have cash and a phone there.
There were all kinds of people there: those who had been released [after serving their sentences], those with documentation issues, and those whom the FSB suspects of something but, for whatever reason, cannot open a case against—so they’re simply being held there; some have been kept there for as long as two and a half years.
At first, they included civilians in a prisoner-of-war exchange and sent them through Belarus. I wasn’t part of that “thousand.” I don’t know why, because I had signed all the documents stating that I agreed to go and everything else.
Then they told me that on July 6, they would be taking us to Georgia. They drove us to the Georgian border. There, they put us in a basement. And I spent four days there.
Deported individuals in the transit zone of the “Dariali” border crossing. Photo courtesy of Andriy Kolomiets
They brought us there on July 6, and by the 10th I had already flown to Moldova. I think it’s because I’m a “political” refugee that everything happened so quickly. Plus, I started talking to the media, telling them that 90–100 people were living in such conditions; I started filming videos and showing everything.
I was the only one taken out of there. At the last minute, they took one more man.
As for my documents, I had a “white passport.” It’s like one of those brochures that fold out many times—that’s what the passport looked like. It’s issued for one month. They issued it to me in two hours. I sent a photo to the embassy—I took a selfie there in the basement [in Georgia]—and they issued it to me. I also signed documents pledging to leave both Georgia and Moldova—that I was going home. Because there had been cases where people fled: they were afraid of the war, tried to stay in Georgia or Moldova, and jumped ship there. While I was on my way, I had the chance to slip out somewhere, but I realized that there were a lot of guys still in the basement, and if I ran away, they wouldn’t be taken out of there. I’d be causing them problems.
We were driven through Georgia under escort with flashing lights; we just sped through the whole country by car, then flew to Moldova by plane. There, a man met us, escorted us to a bus—and we headed to the Odesa region.
Wanted by the TCC and Lunch at “McDonald’s”
And there, the TCC detained me for seven hours. It turned out I’d been on the wanted list since 2024. The Obukhiv District had put me on the wanted list. It was crazy to me: I’d just gotten home, and here they were taking me away right away. Come on, at least let me see my family! I was just in shock; I told them I couldn’t take it, that I’d hang myself. They started guarding me. I said, “Come on, guys, I’ve been through things you couldn’t even imagine, and if I want to do this—there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Especially since I told them: “Here’s the official information, here’s [about my situation]—it’s all online; you can check everything.” They said, “We’ll figure it all out.” They spent seven hours figuring it out.
Then one man came out; I gave him my sister’s number, he called my sister, my sister called Galya, and Galya and my parents had already raised a fuss. Human rights organizations got involved. Another man arrived, called me over, and asked…
Then they reported from Operational Command “South,” saying, they’d invited me for a friendly chat and some coffee there (On July 11, Operational Command “South” reported that Andriy Kolomiets had been invited to the TCC to update his information—G.).
But then they actually took me away. Because I ended up in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, and there Russia had blown up the bridge [across the estuary], and I don’t know how it is now, but back then the only way to leave was through Moldova. And if they had just let me go there, I wouldn’t have been able to get here, because there was no way I could have crossed [the border] again.
So they took me away—also to the Odesa region; I don’t remember the name of the town anymore. There, I asked someone to make a call for me—and they did. Money had been deposited onto this man’s SIM card for me; I went and withdrew it, and by then I already had money for the trip. Before that, I had no money for the trip, no SIM card—nothing. I was wandering around looking for Wi-Fi to connect to. It was such a small town—no cafes, nothing like that. My Russian SIM card was in roaming mode. And there was a frenzy: human rights activists and volunteers were calling.
The first positive thing that happened to me was that when I finally arrived in Odesa, they transferred 1,700 hryvnias to me, and I said, “I don’t care—I’m going to McDonald’s.” And I recorded a video for Facebook of me eating there. Later, my relatives and friends messaged me, laughing: “Wow, you just gave them a free ad.”
Andriy Kolomiets. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
And then I traveled peacefully from Odesa to Kyiv. My mom had already arrived in Kyiv and met me there.
“The only thing that remains is the spirit of the people”
And that was it—I returned home. I arrived in Kyiv. And there were soldiers walking back and forth. I [at first] thought they were all from the TCC—I was going one way, and they were following me. “Oh man,” I thought. Then I realized it was just my imagination; at first, I really thought they were following me. But they were just heading somewhere from the bus station.
I got home, and for the first couple of weeks, I didn’t go out at all. It just felt weird to me; the most I did was walk around the yard. Then later—I went to hospitals and various facilities to undergo a bit of rehabilitation. In the end, it was barely enough… They promised me a lot, but I never actually received proper rehabilitation.
Everything went smoothly: interviews, meetings. They issued me a valid passport in three days, free of charge. They issued me a foreign passport in five days, also for free.
By that time, I’d been allocated 100,000 [as compensation for my arbitrary detention], and that’s all for now. I found a job. I work as a security guard at a supermarket. Of course, it’s not a very good or prestigious job, but for now there’s nothing else, and I don’t have the education to work anywhere else. Of course, I’d be happy to continue working in human rights advocacy, but the organizations I’ve already spoken with don’t have any openings—they aren’t hiring right now. But I’d be all for it if someone invited me.
I’ll consider all options and respond to everyone. I even respond to haters. They write to me in the comments on interviews I’ve given, saying things like, “It’s your own fault,” “You went there yourself,” “Why did you go to an aggressor state? We’ve been at war with them since 2014.” But we all make mistakes; we all fall down, and we all get back up.
I’m still in touch with some of the guys who were with me in Georgia. [They, too, were taken to the Territorial Recruitment Center immediately upon their return to Ukraine, and many of them were mobilized right away.] They’re currently undergoing “training.” I feel awkward because back then I told all the TV channels: “Let’s bring the guys home.” But in the end, they were brought home—and immediately sent off to war. Some haven’t even seen their families yet. At the same time, about half of them agreed to join the army but hoped they’d be given leave for at least a couple of weeks—to see their relatives.
What surprised me most [after 10 years in a Russian prison] was that there’s still a war going on in the country, yet the authorities are stealing just as much as ever. After the Maidan, the authorities treated people differently—perhaps they were more afraid, because back then, people were dousing lawmakers with green dye and throwing them into trash cans—they did all sorts of things.
The only thing that remains is the spirit of the people: people are donating and supporting the military—yes, that’s the only thing that remains.
Author: Anastasia Moskvichova
November 19, 2025, 12:16 p.
m. 40 20-minute read
Anastasia Moskvichova
Maidan activist Andriy Kolomiets, who served ten years in prison on politically motivated charges in Russia. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
Maidan activist Andriy Kolomiets, who served ten years in prison on politically motivated charges in Russia. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
Andriy Kolomiyets is a Maidan activist whom Russia detained in 2015 in Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus while he was traveling to meet his future wife; and convicted him, accusing him of allegedly attacking two members of the “Berkut” special police unit in Kyiv during the protests. He was tried in occupied Crimea; the case attracted widespread attention—the prosecution was led by the controversial prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya.
In January 2025, he was released after 10 years in prison, but was immediately detained again and placed in a temporary detention center for foreign nationals.
It was only six months later that authorities agreed to repatriate Kolomiets to Ukraine via Georgia, but he ended up in a basement at the “Dariali” checkpoint, where deported Ukrainians—whose cases were being reviewed by the embassy—were effectively held indefinitely. And when he finally crossed the Ukrainian border, he was detained for seven hours at the border control center.
Andriy Kolomiets told “Gratam” about how Russian security forces fabricated his case, about the intrigues of the prison administration and recruiters for the Wagner Group, about other politicalhe met while in captivity, as well as what he faced in the months following his return home.
We are publishing his monologue.
“I didn’t know I would be persecuted”
I just saw [a video] of what was happening on Independence Square: “Berkut” officers beating students and women. I just decided to go. Nobody called me or anything.
I’d come and go. You couldn’t stay there for long because they were spraying us with water—we were freezing, all our clothes were wet, and there were other things too. Especially since I live a hundred kilometers from Kyiv—not far.
I was hit by a grenade—that’s what happened. It was a flash-bang grenade with screws, nuts, and pieces of metal taped on with duct tape, and when it exploded, everything flew off in all directions. I was wounded in the leg back then. Not that badly, but my leg was injured. This happened on Hrushevsky Street, around that time (January–February 2014). Near the “Dnipro” hotel. There’s even a video somewhere online where I’m lying there in a blue jacket with “Marlboro” written on it, and they’re helping me up…
Clashes between protesters and security forces on Hrushevsky Street during Euromaidan, January 2014. Photo: Yevhen Feldman, Hrati
I didn’t know that I would be persecuted [in Russia], that I could be arrested and jailed just for being a participant in Euromaidan. Yes, I went there on my own because I’d met Galina and went to see her. Of course, it’s my own fault; a lot of people are bashing me for it now. But who among us doesn’t make mistakes in life, you know?
First of all, there were—I remember—probably two million people on the Maidan—and they’re going to lock us all up? That’s ridiculous. And if only I’d actually killed someone there or done something like that—but I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary there. That’s why I went.
Maidan, January 2014. Photo: Yevgeny Feldman, Grati
“We have information that you’re a ‘sleeper cell’”
They [in Russia] initially thought I was an agent: that I’d come to stage a coup in the Caucasus. I took a lie detector test; they asked me which intelligence agency I worked for, and all that.
First, I got a call telling me to report to the FSB building located at the train station. I had just arrived. What FSB building? At the train station? I thought it was some kind of joke. I said, “Summon me officially—I’ll come.”
But no one officially summoned me, and then two months later the “masked men” (special forces) showed up—and that was it. They came in; I opened the gate for them. They pinned me to the ground in the yard and went inside to search the house. In Galina’s house, they found a small amount of dried wild grass in her ex-husband’s safe. I said, “That’s not mine; I don’t know the code or have the key to that safe—I didn’t have anything like that.”
And that was it—they took me in for questioning. Or, as they put it, for a three-hour “interview.” They handcuffed me and put me in a car. In the car, they put a bag over my head—and off we went. Just a regular black bag. Well, so I couldn’t see where I was going.
They didn’t identify themselves; they had no insignia. “SOBR”—from the Russian “special rapid response unit”—was written on some of the special forces officers’ uniforms, but otherwise… Later I found out that [they were] representatives of the FSB, Center “E” for combating extremism and terrorism.
They started interrogating me right away. “What, why, how, how many of you came?”—“But I came alone.” —“That can’t be.” I said, “I came to see my girlfriend. We met, and I came to see her.” “No,” they said, “you came here to stage a coup; we have information that you’re a ‘sleeper cell’—something like that.”
And at that moment—I was young and inexperienced—I argued back and cursed at them, which just made them even angrier. They started running me through these lie detectors, dragged me down to the basement, shocked me with electricity, and did all sorts of things.
About a day later, they told me—I think it was in the Donetsk or Luhansk region, I don’t remember which—that I had supposedly shot a family there. I said, “Never in my life.” First of all, I’m not in the military. And second, I’ve never been to either Donetsk or Luhansk. I’m not signing anything.
But they wanted to pin something on me just to lock me up. Then they started going on about my participation in the Maidan, about the “Berkut” officers—that I supposedly set them on fire there… But I didn’t set anyone on fire, I said. Where’s the evidence, the testimony, any official documents? In short, I told them again: I won’t sign anything. They took me back to the basement, then—electric shocks, beatings.
Then I finally agreed to sign blank sheets of paper—completely blank—and let them rewrite it to say that, yes, I was on the Maidan, but I didn’t set anyone on fire. In the end, I served my sentence for attacking “Berkut” unit on Hrushevsky Street, which I allegedly tried to set on fire with “Molotov cocktails.”
“I was sick of
this circus” At that point, I didn’t have a lawyer. A lawyer showed up more than a day later, after they’d already officially started building the case. They assigned me a public defender. I told this lawyer [what had happened to me], and she said: “There’s nothing you can do—it’s the system, and so on.” I also tried to tell the investigator—she was a young woman—something, to explain. But she was simply being pressured; she couldn’t do anything, even if she wanted to. The FSB is a more powerful agency.
Later, the Crimean Human Rights Group got in touch with my sister and my relatives—and they found me a lawyer in Moscow. He arrived when the trials were already underway. He arrived almost at the very end. He filed 208 or 210 different motions; eight or ten of them were accepted, and all the others were rejected. And that was it. There was simply a special decree. And Poklonska—former Ukrainian prosecutor Natalia Poklonska, who defected to Russia in 2014 and became the chief prosecutor of occupied Crimea; served in that position until 2016, participated in fabricating cases against Ukrainian citizens—in particular, film director Oleg Sentsov—and was also involved in banning the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People; she was my prosecutor.
Andriy Kolomiyets in a Russian court. Photo: Memorial
They just wanted to shut me down—that’s all. I was tried in Crimea, at the Kyiv District Court of Simferopol. The judge handed down my sentence, and then I had an appeal in Sevastopol.
At the appeal hearing, I said that I didn’t fully understand the language. The judge started speaking to me in Ukrainian. I answered her. But everything was being written down in Russian. I said, “Well, it should be written down the way we speak.” Well, anyway…
At the very end of the trial, when the defendant can state his position, I said, “I’m sick of this circus.” They got agitated and started threatening to add three more months to my sentence. “Go ahead and add them,” I said, it doesn’t matter anymore. I already knew they wouldn’t let me go.
They arrested me in Kabardino-Balkaria in Russia, where I spent three months. There were times at the beginning of my sentence when I was simply in despair and didn’t know what to do. I was imprisoned with Muslims—I was the only non-Muslim there—and I converted to Islam. Now, to be honest, I don’t practice it, I don’t pray, nothing. But that’s how it was.
Then they flew me to Simferopol. I was held at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol from August 13, 2015, to November 16, 2016—a year and three months.
Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol. Photo: Anton Naumlyuk, Grati
And from Simferopol, after the appeal had been heard, they upheld the sentence and sent me to the Krasnodar Krai—back to Russia.
“The beatings—at the hands of the inmates—were actually carried out by the administration itself.”
I had no one in Russia, and I had no choice but to take this stance: to complain about everything. And [Ukrainian] diplomats did a great deal for me. The former Consul General of the Rostov Region visited me many times. Lawyers also came to visit. And suddenly—I was complaining about all of this. The prison was supposed to be a “model facility,” and the administration didn’t want to receive any complaints. And even when there were beatings or acts of violence, they tried to either hide it or “cover it up” somehow—with visits or care packages. But the beatings—carried out by the inmates themselves—were actually orchestrated by the administration. There were all sorts of different situations.
The first few years, of course, were tough. But later, whenever someone came to visit, the warden or deputy warden would call me over: “What’s going on? Is there anything you need?” Something like that.
At times, if it hadn’t been for Galina—who came to visit on the eve of Andriy’s transfer from Crimea to a Russian penal colony—and if it hadn’t been for the consulate and the lawyers, I don’t know what would have become of me.
Political prisoner Andriy Kolomiyets. Photo from his Facebook page
Officially, I was allowed one short visit and one long visit every six months. A long visit lasts three days; a short one lasts three hours. This was under “strict detention conditions” (Russian: Строгие условия содержания, SUS)—a special regime in Russian penal colonies intended for inmates considered particularly dangerous or prone to escape or rule violations. Otherwise—under normal conditions—visits were allowed once every three months. Well, and sometimes, when, as they said, I behaved well, they’d allow something extra. But that happened only once or twice during my entire sentence.
Letters came in. Some, of course, didn’t make it through. But at the beginning of my sentence, I was probably getting two hundred letters a week. People wrote to me a lot—from all over the world, really: even before the full-scale invasion, I got letters from Ukraine, and otherwise—from Canada, Germany, all over Europe. People wrote from America. Russians wrote, as did human rights organizations. They also sent newspapers and postcards. I later collected the postcards, envelopes, and stamps—I had a collection.
I tried to reply every time. First of all, it was interesting, and second, people had gone to the trouble of writing, so I couldn’t just ignore them. Third, it helped me take my mind off things with different thoughts. That was one of the few positive aspects. Apart from all that chaos you saw, letters were something positive—like when you received a care package or when Galina came to visit.
Ukrainians in the prison colony and recruitment into the Wagner Group
In the Krasnodar Krai, there were Ukrainians in the prison camp who had been abducted from Kherson: there were about 250 people. There were Crimeans who were tried for “Hizb ut-Tahrir”: there were never any terrorists in Crimea under Ukrainian rule; once Russia arrived, “terrorists” appeared in Crimea. These were people who had lived there [for years] under Ukrainian rule. They planted banned Islamic literature on them—and imprisoned them.
When I was imprisoned in Crimea, many people were imprisoned precisely for this reason. Human rights activists were imprisoned. I met many of them there. At that time, Akhtem Chiygoz was being held in the Simferopol pretrial detention center, as was Emir-Usein Kuku.
The prisoners from Kherson were brought [to the penal colony in the Krasnodar Krai], if I’m not mistaken, in November 2022. Prior to that, in September, the “Wagner” PMC—a private military group incorporated into the Russian armed forces and led by Dmitry Utkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin; both of whom died in a plane crash in August 2023, two months after a conflict with the Russian Ministry of Defense and an attempted armed mutiny—had taken more than two hundred people, and a couple of months later, they brought our people, whom the Russians had abducted for unknown reasons.
Russian military personnel in Kherson. Photo provided to the publication “Hrati” by Oleksandr Gerashchenko
Prigozhin came in person for the first time; they summoned everyone in the area to the club, and there, surrounded by security, he said he would take [anyone] who wanted to go. He just wouldn’t take rapists, or something like that. And then they took away more than 240 people. Overnight. KamAZ trucks arrived, loaded them in groups of fifty, and then they were flown to the Rostov region.
Recruiters kept coming back, right up until the very last moment. But then, toward the end of my sentence, representatives from the Russian Ministry of Defense arrived, because Wagner had already been killed.
“They made a jacket in the colors of the Russian flag; they wanted me to wear it when I left.”
In the penal colony, the inmates sewed jackets for railroad workers and work clothes for fishermen and hunters. And as for me, first of all, I’m not afraid to work, and second, I understood that if I worked, I’d be able to stay in touch with my relatives—at least call them sometimes—because the facility covered such a large area that if the police started searching the whole place, they’d wear themselves out. It’s harder to inspect than, for example, a residential section, a disciplinary isolation cell, or “strict detention conditions” (SDC). So I agreed to go to work, and I worked there for about two and a half years, and then they put me in “strict detention conditions”: because I was a participant in Euromaidan, they classified me as an extremist, and extremists and terrorists are required to be held in lockable cells.
It looks like a large cell designed to hold 50 people. There are two sections: a nighttime section and a daytime section. At night, there are beds on the upper level, and during the day, there are benches on the lower level where you can sit and watch TV. During the day, for example, you’re not allowed to lie down and sleep, because if you do, they’ll lock you up for 15 days [in solitary confinement].
I was transferred to “strict conditions” in 2021. At first, they latched onto the fact that I was late. I explained why I was late. But they told me, “Your hat isn’t on straight.” I adjusted my hat. Then they said, “You haven’t had a haircut.” In short, I realized they just wanted to crack down on me, and there was nothing I could do about it. The next day, they took me to a hearing [of the disciplinary committee], and I was given ten days [in solitary confinement], then another ten days, and then fifteen days with a transfer to the Special Security Unit (SSU). In this commission, the prison warden acts as the judge, and the prison administration is present.
I remained in the SUS until the end of my sentence, until January 15 of this year. I had a lawyer, Mikhail Benyash; he’s in Europe now because in Russia he’s labeled a “foreign agent”—he also defended all sorts of political prisoners. So, he was the one who defended me there at the very end, and he helped me “knock off” four months [from my sentence]. A year or a year and a half before my release, he came to visit; we wrote a letter to Moscow, and Moscow sent the case back to Krasnodar, saying, “Sort this out.” And then, just as they were about to make a decision, they revoked his law license. So he asked a friend to simply read aloud [in court] what he had written. In the end, my sentence was reduced by four months: two months on one charge and two months on the other.
And when they transferred me to the SUS, I didn’t have a lawyer. And I just realized that I was without a “bulletproof vest.” Because a lawyer is a “bulletproof vest” in cases like this. If you’re going to fight the administration, your lawyer needs to live right there at the colony. And if you’re without a lawyer, without any connections, there’s nothing you can do. They could even kill you there—they’ll just write that it was heart failure.
I’d been hearing questions like “Whose Crimea is it?” for ten years. At first, I argued with them, defending my position. Then one day Galina came for a visit and said, “They’re going to add time to your sentence right now; you’ll be serving even longer.” After that, I just kept quiet.
Andriy Kolomiets. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
And when Benyash arrived and said that Ukraine had recaptured Kherson—he leaned in and whispered it in my ear—I was so happy. I went back to the SUS—but there was nothing about it in the news there; they report things differently in their news. It wasn’t until a week later that Russia said they had “withdrawn to a more advantageous position.”
Toward the end of my sentence, the SUS was turned into a work camp; you could actually work there. And they started forcing everyone to choose: either go to the PKT—a cell-type facility—where conditions were even worse, or go to work. I knew how to sew on a sewing machine—I’d been sewing since the beginning of my sentence—so I went.
And there was an opportunity when the guys were being released: you could sew yourself a jacket. Well, I sort of made a deal with them; I didn’t think they’d make fun of me. But they sewed a jacket in the colors of the Russian flag—they wanted me to walk out wearing it. I refused. Of course, I got sick wearing just a sweater, but I just couldn’t do that. The administration did this on purpose so they could see me walking around in it on the cameras and laugh at me.
“I Bought a Phone Through the Police”
When Galina came to visit, she would tell me the news. We tried to play music so they wouldn’t record us. And this is how I communicated with my lawyer: I’d take a sheet of paper, write on it with a pencil, then erase it, then write over it. That’s because they were definitely wiretapping us—after all, they thought I was an agent. Second, if I said something wrong, the lawyer could face some kind of liability, because lawyers were being jailed for defending people like me.
If I managed to call home once every three or four months, I didn’t ask any questions—I understood that there could be problems.
My family couldn’t come visit me because my sister was on the Maidan with me, my brother-in-law was in the military, and my brother had been killed in the ATO.
I didn’t really want them to go there anyway; it would have been difficult [emotionally]: I was very thin, and I looked different than I do now. I simply couldn’t have bear my mother’s tears. That was my decision. Well, and I didn’t know what would happen to them if they came. They could have been arrested for something, too.
They didn’t let us make calls either, but I bought a phone through the police. I paid them to bring it to me. You could talk for a week or two, a month at most, and then the same people who brought it would take it away from you. There were no other options, and I wanted to call home. Sometimes I even managed to talk via video chat.
But you can’t hide a phone for long. Everyone hears you talking anyway, and then they turn you in.
The administration controlled everything—not just the phones. They were paid for it. I didn’t have that kind of money to pay them. But human rights activists helped a lot; people donated. If it weren’t for that, I would probably have come back without any teeth and in much worse health.
There was medical care there: they’d break a Citramon tablet in half, giving one half for stomach pain and the other for a headache. Or they’d say, “Pray—it’ll all pass.”
“I Didn’t End Up in the ‘Thousand’”
I was released at the end of my term. I wasn’t exchanged; I simply walked out when my sentence ended. They took me to the deportation center—the Center for Temporary Detention of Foreign Citizens in the village of Novoukrainka in the Krasnodar Region. They just handed me off from one police station to another, even though according to the paperwork, I was supposedly being released. And from January 15 to July 6 of this year, I was at the deportation center.
Basically, it was the same there as in prison—maybe a little better: you could have cash and a phone there.
There were all kinds of people there: those who had been released [after serving their sentences], those with documentation issues, and those whom the FSB suspects of something but, for whatever reason, cannot open a case against—so they’re simply being held there; some have been kept there for as long as two and a half years.
At first, they included civilians in a prisoner-of-war exchange and sent them through Belarus. I wasn’t part of that “thousand.” I don’t know why, because I had signed all the documents stating that I agreed to go and everything else.
Then they told me that on July 6, they would be taking us to Georgia. They drove us to the Georgian border. There, they put us in a basement. And I spent four days there.
Deported individuals in the transit zone of the “Dariali” border crossing. Photo courtesy of Andriy Kolomiets
They brought us there on July 6, and by the 10th I had already flown to Moldova. I think it’s because I’m a “political” refugee that everything happened so quickly. Plus, I started talking to the media, telling them that 90–100 people were living in such conditions; I started filming videos and showing everything.
I was the only one taken out of there. At the last minute, they took one more man.
As for my documents, I had a “white passport.” It’s like one of those brochures that fold out many times—that’s what the passport looked like. It’s issued for one month. They issued it to me in two hours. I sent a photo to the embassy—I took a selfie there in the basement [in Georgia]—and they issued it to me. I also signed documents pledging to leave both Georgia and Moldova—that I was going home. Because there had been cases where people fled: they were afraid of the war, tried to stay in Georgia or Moldova, and jumped ship there. While I was on my way, I had the chance to slip out somewhere, but I realized that there were a lot of guys still in the basement, and if I ran away, they wouldn’t be taken out of there. I’d be causing them problems.
We were driven through Georgia under escort with flashing lights; we just sped through the whole country by car, then flew to Moldova by plane. There, a man met us, escorted us to a bus—and we headed to the Odesa region.
Wanted by the TCC and Lunch at “McDonald’s”
And there, the TCC detained me for seven hours. It turned out I’d been on the wanted list since 2024. The Obukhiv District had put me on the wanted list. It was crazy to me: I’d just gotten home, and here they were taking me away right away. Come on, at least let me see my family! I was just in shock; I told them I couldn’t take it, that I’d hang myself. They started guarding me. I said, “Come on, guys, I’ve been through things you couldn’t even imagine, and if I want to do this—there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Especially since I told them: “Here’s the official information, here’s [about my situation]—it’s all online; you can check everything.” They said, “We’ll figure it all out.” They spent seven hours figuring it out.
Then one man came out; I gave him my sister’s number, he called my sister, my sister called Galya, and Galya and my parents had already raised a fuss. Human rights organizations got involved. Another man arrived, called me over, and asked…
Then they reported from Operational Command “South,” saying, they’d invited me for a friendly chat and some coffee there (On July 11, Operational Command “South” reported that Andriy Kolomiets had been invited to the TCC to update his information—G.).
But then they actually took me away. Because I ended up in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, and there Russia had blown up the bridge [across the estuary], and I don’t know how it is now, but back then the only way to leave was through Moldova. And if they had just let me go there, I wouldn’t have been able to get here, because there was no way I could have crossed [the border] again.
So they took me away—also to the Odesa region; I don’t remember the name of the town anymore. There, I asked someone to make a call for me—and they did. Money had been deposited onto this man’s SIM card for me; I went and withdrew it, and by then I already had money for the trip. Before that, I had no money for the trip, no SIM card—nothing. I was wandering around looking for Wi-Fi to connect to. It was such a small town—no cafes, nothing like that. My Russian SIM card was in roaming mode. And there was a frenzy: human rights activists and volunteers were calling.
The first positive thing that happened to me was that when I finally arrived in Odesa, they transferred 1,700 hryvnias to me, and I said, “I don’t care—I’m going to McDonald’s.” And I recorded a video for Facebook of me eating there. Later, my relatives and friends messaged me, laughing: “Wow, you just gave them a free ad.”
Andriy Kolomiets. Photo: Anastasia Moskvichova, Grati
And then I traveled peacefully from Odesa to Kyiv. My mom had already arrived in Kyiv and met me there.
“The only thing that remains is the spirit of the people”
And that was it—I returned home. I arrived in Kyiv. And there were soldiers walking back and forth. I [at first] thought they were all from the TCC—I was going one way, and they were following me. “Oh man,” I thought. Then I realized it was just my imagination; at first, I really thought they were following me. But they were just heading somewhere from the bus station.
I got home, and for the first couple of weeks, I didn’t go out at all. It just felt weird to me; the most I did was walk around the yard. Then later—I went to hospitals and various facilities to undergo a bit of rehabilitation. In the end, it was barely enough… They promised me a lot, but I never actually received proper rehabilitation.
Everything went smoothly: interviews, meetings. They issued me a valid passport in three days, free of charge. They issued me a foreign passport in five days, also for free.
By that time, I’d been allocated 100,000 [as compensation for my arbitrary detention], and that’s all for now. I found a job. I work as a security guard at a supermarket. Of course, it’s not a very good or prestigious job, but for now there’s nothing else, and I don’t have the education to work anywhere else. Of course, I’d be happy to continue working in human rights advocacy, but the organizations I’ve already spoken with don’t have any openings—they aren’t hiring right now. But I’d be all for it if someone invited me.
I’ll consider all options and respond to everyone. I even respond to haters. They write to me in the comments on interviews I’ve given, saying things like, “It’s your own fault,” “You went there yourself,” “Why did you go to an aggressor state? We’ve been at war with them since 2014.” But we all make mistakes; we all fall down, and we all get back up.
I’m still in touch with some of the guys who were with me in Georgia. [They, too, were taken to the Territorial Recruitment Center immediately upon their return to Ukraine, and many of them were mobilized right away.] They’re currently undergoing “training.” I feel awkward because back then I told all the TV channels: “Let’s bring the guys home.” But in the end, they were brought home—and immediately sent off to war. Some haven’t even seen their families yet. At the same time, about half of them agreed to join the army but hoped they’d be given leave for at least a couple of weeks—to see their relatives.
What surprised me most [after 10 years in a Russian prison] was that there’s still a war going on in the country, yet the authorities are stealing just as much as ever. After the Maidan, the authorities treated people differently—perhaps they were more afraid, because back then, people were dousing lawmakers with green dye and throwing them into trash cans—they did all sorts of things.
The only thing that remains is the spirit of the people: people are donating and supporting the military—yes, that’s the only thing that remains.
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.