“I found a telegram channel on the Internet and wrote that I would like to pass on information,” a woman with a blurred face says in a video released by the FSB press service. Last week, Russian propagandists boasted that another spy who passed classified information to Ukrainian intelligence was detained in Crimea. The 28-year-old Crimean woman allegedly offered Ukrainian intelligence to collect information about military airfields and the location of Russian military equipment on the peninsula.

Russian security forces did not name the detainee, but Crimean human rights activists are sure from her age and description that she is Lera Cemilova, a resident of the village of Krymka, Dzhankoy district. In February, her mother released a video message where she said that for almost 10 months she has not known anything about the fate of her daughter, who was abducted by the FSB last spring.

According to the woman, in May last year, their home was searched, after that Lera was taken to court - allegedly because she refused to undergo a medical examination. The court predictably accepted the version of the security forces and arrested Cemilova for fifteen days. Later, the FSB officers informed the family that they should not expect Lera's return soon, as she would be taken to Simferopol after serving her administrative arrest. The occupiers did not inform the family about the charges or the girl's legal status. And when the mother asked for clarification from the FSB department, they said they had no information about her daughter's whereabouts. Later, an official response came: no criminal cases were initiated or investigated by the FSB Investigative Department against Cemilova.

The family appealed to the prosecutor's office, where they replied: there is no need to demand anything from the "chekists", because they have the right not to answer if they consider any information to be a state secret. And its disclosure is unacceptable.

In desperation, the mother of the abducted Crimean woman recorded a video message, which was then distributed on social networks and Ukrainian media. And after a while, FSB officers suddenly announced the detention of a “spy” of the same age and similar in description to Lera. Moreover, as human rights activists explain, this is not the first case of the “detention” of a person who was kidnapped much earlier.

A similar story, for example, happened in October last year, when numerous propaganda resources reported the detention in Crimea of a spy who was collecting information about the Russian military in the Kherson region. At the same time, they somehow forgot to clarify that student Anna Yeltsova was kidnapped back in December 2022 and held in a special FSB prison in Simferopol for almost two years without any communication with the outside world. Until they “got around” to filing espionage charges. Those who are behind bars, waiting for the "chekists" to have the time and inspiration to make them the subjects of another case, are called “frozen” by the FSB.

"This story is a classic illustration of the current work of Russian security forces in the occupied territory. They have set high standards for fighting Ukrainian agents. And the green light is given for any actions. The technology has already been put on a conveyor belt. First, they select a victim and kidnap him/her. Then they keep the kidnapped person for a long time (sometimes several years) in an unknown place in an unknown status with a completely unclear perspective," says Crimean activist Gafar.

According to him, at some point, the “fighters against espionage” offer the abduction victim to give a confession on camera, which was drawn up by the investigator at the time. It is difficult to refuse, because it means being held outlawed for an indefinite period of time in complete isolation and frankly unbearable conditions. “In fact, the system is designed in such a way that within a few weeks the abductees almost dream of being officially accused of anything as soon as possible,” states Gafar.

After the “confession”, the kidnapped victim gets the status of a suspect, the opportunity to inform their relatives about their whereabouts, receive at least some medical care and finally involve a lawyer in the case. In return, the FSB gets an increase in the percentage of counterintelligence counteraction.

There are dozens of such stories in Crimea today. Among those that have come to light are the case of Lyudmila Kolesnikova from Yalta, who was abducted immediately after her mother's funeral, the disappearance of two Sevastopol construction workers Farhad Soliev and Server Aliyev, about whom nothing has been known for almost a year and a half, the abduction of a resident of Kirovsky district Ismail Shemshedinov and Bakhchisaray businessman Anatoly Kobzar. However, the vast majority of relatives continue to remain silent, fearing that publicity could harm the victims.

Human rights activists from the initiative "Tribunal. The Crimean Episode“ initiative emphasize that the prolonged detention of people ”incommunicado" (without external communication) and without access to a lawyer is a direct violation of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The scale of the phenomenon is an attempt to give it the status of a norm. Nevertheless, enforced disappearances of Crimeans are war crimes for which both the organizers and perpetrators must be severely punished.