Abducted abroad: How Russia seizes its citizens in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan — and puts them on trial back home

After the full-scale war began and Russia announced mobilization, many Russians left the country.

But leaving Russia doesn’t put you beyond the reach of its security services.

As Meduza has warned, some countries will extradite Russians at the request of law enforcement agencies back home.

In other cases, Russians facing criminal charges at home are deported on one pretext or another.

Once back in Russia, they end up in pretrial detention — as the activist Ariadna Litvinova did.

And some are abducted outright, taken to Russia, and put on trial.

That is what happened, for example, to Georgy Pirogov, whom the Moscow City Court sentenced in July to 23 years on charges of “treason.” Meduza recounts some of the cases in which Russians were abducted abroad. ...