New details have emerged about the fate of the Crimean Tatar Appaz Kurtamet, who was kidnapped in the Genichesk district

The Crimean Tatar Appaz Kurtamet, who was kidnapped in the Genichesk district, is currently serving an illegal prison sentence in Russia.

This became known from social networks.

The occupying power structures of the Russian Federation continue the practice of kidnapping and persecution of residents of the occupied territories of southern Ukraine. One of such victims was the Crimean Tatar Appaz Kurtamet, who was illegally detained in the Genichesk district in 2022. At the time of the kidnapping, the boy was only 19 years old.

According to information published by human rights resources, after the detention, Appaz was held without contact with his family. For several months, his relatives had no information about his fate. Later, it turned out that he was held in a pre-trial detention center in occupied Simferopol, where physical and psychological pressure was applied to him.

Later, a Russian court sentenced him to seven years in prison on charges of “financing an illegal armed formation.” This wording is widely used by the occupation structures to criminalize any disloyalty to the occupation regime. In 2024, Appaz’s father, Khalil Kurtamet, was sentenced under a similar scheme.

Appaz is currently in a colony in the Pskov region of Russia. According to his mother, Ayşe Kurtamet, the conditions there are somewhat different from the detention center, but they remain difficult. “He is currently in a colony in the Pskov region of the Russian Federation, where living conditions are better than in the detention center in Simferopol, but the situation itself is stressful,” she said. According to her, dozens of prisoners are held in one room, and the internal control system is based on constant pressure and denunciations.

Despite this, Appaz is trying to maintain internal stability. He works in a garment factory, reads books and studies English in his free time. The mother is able to sometimes communicate with her son through the prison communication system and send him money for the most necessary things.

Individual episodes of detention in the colony testify to the punitive nature of the system: for minor formal violations, the administration can apply disciplinary punishments, including isolation. Even in such conditions, Appaz receives moral support through letters that help him cope.

The story of Appaz Kurtameta is indicative for the occupied territories of southern Ukraine. Abduction, months-long isolation without contact with relatives, torture and trials with predetermined sentences have become a tool of intimidation that Russian security forces systematically use against Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian citizens. Some of such cases remain unreported, and many people simply disappear after detention.