A Son and Father Held Captive in Russia: The Story of a Crimean Tatar Family
Source: Ukraїner
Author: Anastasia Marushevska
The abduction of a 19-year-old son, followed a year later by that of his father—this could be the plot of some action-packed movie, but unfortunately, it is the reality for one Crimean Tatar family. Both were abducted by the occupiers in the village of Novooleksiivka, near Henichesk, and sentenced to seven and eight years in prison, respectively.
We spoke with Ayşe Kurtamet—a Crimean Tatar woman who is fighting for the release of her son, Appaz, and her ex-husband, Khalil Kurtamet, from Russian captivity. She speaks about the long history of Russia’s persecution of the Crimean Tatars and the baseless nature of the charges against her family.
Russia’s persecution of the Crimean Tatars has been going on for centuries. Repression under the Russian Empire and the USSR—including the 1944 genocide—has, unfortunately, not been confined to the pages of history books. Since the occupation of Crimea and the start of a new phase of the war, Crimean Tatars have been persecuted even more intensely and imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
The Abduction of Appaz Kurtamet
At the start of the full-scale invasion, Ayşe and her son Appaz were living in Kyiv, from where they left for Lviv. There, the young man worked remotely for an IT company and volunteered. Prior to that, they had lived in Novooleksiivka; Appaz had studied in Turkey for a time and then lived in Odesa, where he taught the Crimean Tatar language.
Ayşe recalls that her son had strong convictions and could not stand idly by while events unfolded:
— Appaz was always thinking about social activism. He even had a project to clear the coastline of jellyfish—at the time, this was a major problem for our resort (on the coast of the Azov Sea—Ed.). He approached the village head with this project, and the head supported his initiative.
When Ayşe left Lviv to visit her daughter in Istanbul—to help care for her newborn twins—Appaz stayed in Ukraine. He promised to be careful. But without telling anyone—including his mother—he set off for his hometown of Novooleksiivka. His wife recalls:
— When my son went there, he didn’t even warn me. He always did that, even in peacetime, so his mom wouldn’t worry.
Ayşe explains that her son didn’t fully realize the risks. According to her, there was no active fighting in the Henichesk district at the time, and people were still using humanitarian corridors through Zaporizhzhia. Appaz believed he could save the family home—by finding tenants so the occupiers wouldn’t take it over.
He reached Novooleksiivka without any problems via a humanitarian corridor, did indeed find tenants, and tried to formalize everything officially. His last call to his mother was from a notary’s office: Appaz was about to have everything legally confirmed. Ayşe is convinced that he believed the official documents would protect the house from being seized and provide the family with at least a minimal income, since their financial situation was far from easy.
Appaz was abducted on the street on July 23, 2022. Ayşe didn’t find out about it until three months later, since after the call from the notary’s office, all contact with him was lost.
— The abduction, as he explained, was intended to “round up” a certain number of Ukrainians—people who, in their opinion, might know certain information: volunteers, activists. And he was a volunteer—they obviously found that out.
Later, a man called Ayşe and said: “Your son has been detained. Things are looking bad for him. I can’t say anything else. Your son asked me to tell you to call you.”
For months, the Kurtamet family gathered information bit by bit: a call from an unknown person, conversations with volunteers, fruitless appeals to the “Chongar” checkpoint, and communication with other families whose relatives had disappeared from the occupied Azov region. Ayşe recalls how she first learned that her son was alive:
“They released a Ukrainian man who had been undergoing ‘filtration’ in a Crimean detention center. He said he’d been in a cell with my son. There were about 70 people there—all from the Kherson region. Some were detained at checkpoints; others were abducted.
Ayşe hired a Crimean lawyer who traveled to the “Chongar” checkpoint. At first, they denied that Appaz had ever been there. During the second trip, they gave a different answer and said that he had been seen there, but “we don’t know what happened to him after that. “Perhaps you should look for him somewhere on the side of the road.”
Ayşe says that during the search, she was told about the worst-case scenarios: people could have been drugged, dumped on the side of the road, and then “processed” through a psychiatric hospital.
— They come up with all sorts of excuses to cover up their crimes. There have been many cases where people were “dumped” like that and then found in mental hospitals. And those people could no longer tell what had been done to them—how they were broken and coerced. I, too, searched for my son in psychiatric hospitals. Of course, I was relieved that he wasn’t there, but at the same time I was afraid: where, then, was my son?
It later became clear that the call from an unknown man “on behalf of my son” was a hoax, and the official responses from the “Chongar” checkpoint contradicted one another. Appaza was abducted in the Henichesk district on July 23, 2022, and sent for “filtration” to a pretrial detention center in occupied Crimea. At the time of his detention, he was 19 years old.
A Show Trial, the Vladimir Central Prison, and a Russian Penal Colony
In April 2023, a show trial was staged against Appaz in occupied Crimea, accusing him of financing terrorism. Messages that the occupiers had recovered from the young man’s phone were used as evidence to support these charges. It was a conversation with another Crimean Tatar who had joined the “Crimea” volunteer battalion and was seeking support to provide for himself and his comrades. Appaz tried to help him, looked for funds, and sent 500 hryvnias himself. For the occupiers, this served as proof of his intent to “finance terrorism,” for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
At first, they tried to recruit him, to persuade him to cooperate, to engage in “special operations.” They promised to release him if he agreed to work for them. He refused. Then they offered him Russian citizenship—also to no avail. Ayşe says:
“We know our history. Our people have endured many repressions—they were aware of this, they understood.”
Appaz was initially held in a Crimean pretrial detention center, where, according to his mother, the conditions were the worst. He is now in a penal colony in the Pskov region, where he was transferred in November 2024 from the Vladimir Central Prison.
— At the Pskov colony, there is a five-day workweek with a monthly salary of 1,500 rubles (less than 850 UAH—ed.). After the workday, inmates are not allowed to rest, lie down, or even sit on the bed until lights out. Russian prisons are hell on earth.
In letters to his mother, Appaz wrote that the Pskov penal colony is a more or less “decent” facility by Russian standards. But there, 50–60 people convicted under various charges are held in a single room, whereas in the Vladimir Central Prison, there were only 3–4 people per cell. There, along with Appaz, were other political prisoners, including artist and activist Bohdan Ziza, whom the occupiers sentenced to 15 years in prison for a protest in occupied Yevpatoria against the crimes of the Russian army in Bucha. Ayşe shares that Bohdan has become like a son to her; they also correspond and have a lot in common—both grew up as orphans.
She adds that Appaz tries to stay positive; he reads and studies English, even though his work in the penal colony doesn’t give him many opportunities to do so. He gets very tired of the noise and the crowds, where everyone tries to get under your skin and wait for you to say something thoughtless so they can pounce on it.
— He feels that in such an environment, desires and dreams gradually fade away. He says, “I don’t want that to happen to me. But in the camps, they break people, turn them into ‘jellyfish’—a person stops dreaming about anything.”
According to Ayşe, Appaz misses Ukraine very much and, above all, wants to return here. His dream is to live on his native soil, in Crimea, to be part of Ukraine’s reconstruction, and to develop the culture of his people.
The Abduction and Imprisonment of Khalil Kurtamet
Cases of abduction like the one that happened to Appaz are not isolated in the Henichesk district, as this is an area with a concentrated population of Crimean Tatars on the Ukrainian mainland. The highest number of such cases is in Novooleksiivka. Russian occupiers have abducted many residents of the district—including Crimean Tatars—from there and are holding them in prisons and penal colonies. There are well-known stories of the abductions of Mamed Dolgopolov, Jafar Ablyamitov, and Rinat Ablyakimov, among others.
Among those abducted is Appaz’s father, Khalil Kurtamet, Ayshe’s ex-husband. He was a businessman and the owner of the “Ai-Petri” hotel on the Arabat Spit, which the occupiers seized and appropriated at the start of the full-scale invasion. According to his wife, Khalil was abducted a year after their son, tortured, and pressured to cooperate. Like Appaz, he was accused of alleged ties to Crimean Tatar military units, only this time the accusation involved not the “Crimea” battalion but the battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhihan.
The Crimean Human Rights Group reported that Khalila was abducted in November 2023. They cite the FSB’s allegations that the detainee had allegedly been actively involved in the activities of the Noman Chelebidzhihan Battalion since 2015 and had also transferred funds to equip the battalion’s base in the village of Chongar in the Kherson region.
In October 2024, the “Henichesk District Court”—illegally established by Russia—sentenced Khalil to eight years in prison. According to Ayşe, her husband is currently being transferred from one place to another—he is being transported to various Russian cities and held in different penal colonies and prisons.
Despite her health problems, Ayşe devotes all her time to fighting for her loved ones—her son Appaz and his father Khalil. She has already appealed for help to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the UN, and has organized protests in Turkey, outside the European Parliament in Brussels, and in Athlone, Ireland. She hopes that the international community and the publicity will help bring her son and ex-husband home from Russian captivity through prisoner exchanges.
Author: Anastasia Marushevska
The abduction of a 19-year-old son, followed a year later by that of his father—this could be the plot of some action-packed movie, but unfortunately, it is the reality for one Crimean Tatar family. Both were abducted by the occupiers in the village of Novooleksiivka, near Henichesk, and sentenced to seven and eight years in prison, respectively.
We spoke with Ayşe Kurtamet—a Crimean Tatar woman who is fighting for the release of her son, Appaz, and her ex-husband, Khalil Kurtamet, from Russian captivity. She speaks about the long history of Russia’s persecution of the Crimean Tatars and the baseless nature of the charges against her family.
Russia’s persecution of the Crimean Tatars has been going on for centuries. Repression under the Russian Empire and the USSR—including the 1944 genocide—has, unfortunately, not been confined to the pages of history books. Since the occupation of Crimea and the start of a new phase of the war, Crimean Tatars have been persecuted even more intensely and imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
The Abduction of Appaz Kurtamet
At the start of the full-scale invasion, Ayşe and her son Appaz were living in Kyiv, from where they left for Lviv. There, the young man worked remotely for an IT company and volunteered. Prior to that, they had lived in Novooleksiivka; Appaz had studied in Turkey for a time and then lived in Odesa, where he taught the Crimean Tatar language.
Ayşe recalls that her son had strong convictions and could not stand idly by while events unfolded:
— Appaz was always thinking about social activism. He even had a project to clear the coastline of jellyfish—at the time, this was a major problem for our resort (on the coast of the Azov Sea—Ed.). He approached the village head with this project, and the head supported his initiative.
When Ayşe left Lviv to visit her daughter in Istanbul—to help care for her newborn twins—Appaz stayed in Ukraine. He promised to be careful. But without telling anyone—including his mother—he set off for his hometown of Novooleksiivka. His wife recalls:
— When my son went there, he didn’t even warn me. He always did that, even in peacetime, so his mom wouldn’t worry.
Ayşe explains that her son didn’t fully realize the risks. According to her, there was no active fighting in the Henichesk district at the time, and people were still using humanitarian corridors through Zaporizhzhia. Appaz believed he could save the family home—by finding tenants so the occupiers wouldn’t take it over.
He reached Novooleksiivka without any problems via a humanitarian corridor, did indeed find tenants, and tried to formalize everything officially. His last call to his mother was from a notary’s office: Appaz was about to have everything legally confirmed. Ayşe is convinced that he believed the official documents would protect the house from being seized and provide the family with at least a minimal income, since their financial situation was far from easy.
Appaz was abducted on the street on July 23, 2022. Ayşe didn’t find out about it until three months later, since after the call from the notary’s office, all contact with him was lost.
— The abduction, as he explained, was intended to “round up” a certain number of Ukrainians—people who, in their opinion, might know certain information: volunteers, activists. And he was a volunteer—they obviously found that out.
Later, a man called Ayşe and said: “Your son has been detained. Things are looking bad for him. I can’t say anything else. Your son asked me to tell you to call you.”
For months, the Kurtamet family gathered information bit by bit: a call from an unknown person, conversations with volunteers, fruitless appeals to the “Chongar” checkpoint, and communication with other families whose relatives had disappeared from the occupied Azov region. Ayşe recalls how she first learned that her son was alive:
“They released a Ukrainian man who had been undergoing ‘filtration’ in a Crimean detention center. He said he’d been in a cell with my son. There were about 70 people there—all from the Kherson region. Some were detained at checkpoints; others were abducted.
Ayşe hired a Crimean lawyer who traveled to the “Chongar” checkpoint. At first, they denied that Appaz had ever been there. During the second trip, they gave a different answer and said that he had been seen there, but “we don’t know what happened to him after that. “Perhaps you should look for him somewhere on the side of the road.”
Ayşe says that during the search, she was told about the worst-case scenarios: people could have been drugged, dumped on the side of the road, and then “processed” through a psychiatric hospital.
— They come up with all sorts of excuses to cover up their crimes. There have been many cases where people were “dumped” like that and then found in mental hospitals. And those people could no longer tell what had been done to them—how they were broken and coerced. I, too, searched for my son in psychiatric hospitals. Of course, I was relieved that he wasn’t there, but at the same time I was afraid: where, then, was my son?
It later became clear that the call from an unknown man “on behalf of my son” was a hoax, and the official responses from the “Chongar” checkpoint contradicted one another. Appaza was abducted in the Henichesk district on July 23, 2022, and sent for “filtration” to a pretrial detention center in occupied Crimea. At the time of his detention, he was 19 years old.
A Show Trial, the Vladimir Central Prison, and a Russian Penal Colony
In April 2023, a show trial was staged against Appaz in occupied Crimea, accusing him of financing terrorism. Messages that the occupiers had recovered from the young man’s phone were used as evidence to support these charges. It was a conversation with another Crimean Tatar who had joined the “Crimea” volunteer battalion and was seeking support to provide for himself and his comrades. Appaz tried to help him, looked for funds, and sent 500 hryvnias himself. For the occupiers, this served as proof of his intent to “finance terrorism,” for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
At first, they tried to recruit him, to persuade him to cooperate, to engage in “special operations.” They promised to release him if he agreed to work for them. He refused. Then they offered him Russian citizenship—also to no avail. Ayşe says:
“We know our history. Our people have endured many repressions—they were aware of this, they understood.”
Appaz was initially held in a Crimean pretrial detention center, where, according to his mother, the conditions were the worst. He is now in a penal colony in the Pskov region, where he was transferred in November 2024 from the Vladimir Central Prison.
— At the Pskov colony, there is a five-day workweek with a monthly salary of 1,500 rubles (less than 850 UAH—ed.). After the workday, inmates are not allowed to rest, lie down, or even sit on the bed until lights out. Russian prisons are hell on earth.
In letters to his mother, Appaz wrote that the Pskov penal colony is a more or less “decent” facility by Russian standards. But there, 50–60 people convicted under various charges are held in a single room, whereas in the Vladimir Central Prison, there were only 3–4 people per cell. There, along with Appaz, were other political prisoners, including artist and activist Bohdan Ziza, whom the occupiers sentenced to 15 years in prison for a protest in occupied Yevpatoria against the crimes of the Russian army in Bucha. Ayşe shares that Bohdan has become like a son to her; they also correspond and have a lot in common—both grew up as orphans.
She adds that Appaz tries to stay positive; he reads and studies English, even though his work in the penal colony doesn’t give him many opportunities to do so. He gets very tired of the noise and the crowds, where everyone tries to get under your skin and wait for you to say something thoughtless so they can pounce on it.
— He feels that in such an environment, desires and dreams gradually fade away. He says, “I don’t want that to happen to me. But in the camps, they break people, turn them into ‘jellyfish’—a person stops dreaming about anything.”
According to Ayşe, Appaz misses Ukraine very much and, above all, wants to return here. His dream is to live on his native soil, in Crimea, to be part of Ukraine’s reconstruction, and to develop the culture of his people.
The Abduction and Imprisonment of Khalil Kurtamet
Cases of abduction like the one that happened to Appaz are not isolated in the Henichesk district, as this is an area with a concentrated population of Crimean Tatars on the Ukrainian mainland. The highest number of such cases is in Novooleksiivka. Russian occupiers have abducted many residents of the district—including Crimean Tatars—from there and are holding them in prisons and penal colonies. There are well-known stories of the abductions of Mamed Dolgopolov, Jafar Ablyamitov, and Rinat Ablyakimov, among others.
Among those abducted is Appaz’s father, Khalil Kurtamet, Ayshe’s ex-husband. He was a businessman and the owner of the “Ai-Petri” hotel on the Arabat Spit, which the occupiers seized and appropriated at the start of the full-scale invasion. According to his wife, Khalil was abducted a year after their son, tortured, and pressured to cooperate. Like Appaz, he was accused of alleged ties to Crimean Tatar military units, only this time the accusation involved not the “Crimea” battalion but the battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhihan.
The Crimean Human Rights Group reported that Khalila was abducted in November 2023. They cite the FSB’s allegations that the detainee had allegedly been actively involved in the activities of the Noman Chelebidzhihan Battalion since 2015 and had also transferred funds to equip the battalion’s base in the village of Chongar in the Kherson region.
In October 2024, the “Henichesk District Court”—illegally established by Russia—sentenced Khalil to eight years in prison. According to Ayşe, her husband is currently being transferred from one place to another—he is being transported to various Russian cities and held in different penal colonies and prisons.
Despite her health problems, Ayşe devotes all her time to fighting for her loved ones—her son Appaz and his father Khalil. She has already appealed for help to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the UN, and has organized protests in Turkey, outside the European Parliament in Brussels, and in Athlone, Ireland. She hopes that the international community and the publicity will help bring her son and ex-husband home from Russian captivity through prisoner exchanges.
This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.