A 21-year-old “spy” who was abducted at the onset of the full-scale war is set to stand trial in occupied Luhansk. His father has already been convicted

21-year-old Artem Kudzhanov is set to be tried in the occupied Luhansk region on charges of allegedly spying for Ukraine, according to a statement released by the occupation prosecutor’s office on March 7.

The occupation prosecutors claim that from July to August 2022 Kudzhanov “voluntarily gathered information about the locations of Russian military personnel” in the occupied part of Luhansk region and passed it to Ukrainian intelligence services.

On October 28, armed agents from the so-called “Ministry of State Security” of Luhansk raided the Kudzhanov family home in the village of Bahachka, Svatove district. During the search, they found a military uniform belonging to Artem’s older brother, a former conscript, and something they deemed suspicious on Artem’s phone. Both Artem, then 19, and his 20-year-old brother were taken to the local police department, but the older brother was released after a few days. Meanwhile, Artem was beaten and possibly tortured.

Artem Kudzhanov

At the time of his abduction, Kudzhanov was a college student in Siverskodonetsk, studying to become an auto mechanic. Russian forces occupied his home village of Bahachka in early March 2022 and seized Siverskodonetsk by late June 2022. This means that by the time Artem was abducted, both his home village and the city where he studied were under Russian occupation.

He was abducted at a time when the occupation authorities had not yet fully established Russian administrative and security structures in the region. The Luhansk-based entities responsible for his abduction have since been disbanded.

It took Artem Kudzhanov’s family more than a year to obtain any information about his fate. In the summer of 2024, he was formally charged under the Russian Criminal Code with “knowingly false reporting of an act of terrorism.”

By that time, Artem’s father had also been imprisoned. 50-year-old Ibrahim Kudzhanov was abducted from a hospital by men uniform In early February 2024. He was accused of participating in combat in Luhansk region as a member of the Aidar Battalion. Like his son, he was subjected to torture, including electric shocks.

Ibrahim Kudzhanov

Former members of the Aidar Battalion have been persecuted in Luhansk region since the beginning of the occupation, but the crackdown intensified in 2024 after Russia officially designated Aidar as a terrorist organization.

Kudzhanov was aware that men of conscription age were being abducted in the occupied territories. Unable to leave Svatove district, he and his sons tried to remain hidden at home. However, he required regular inpatient medical treatment due to disability, making it impossible for him to stay in hiding.

In the May 2024 edition of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official Russian government publication, Ibrahim Kudzhanov is listed in the “Register of Organizations and Individuals Involved in Extremist or Terrorist Activities.” A search on the website of Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service confirms that Kudzhanov remains on this list.

Accused of “participating in a terrorist organization,” Kudzhanov was temporarily released a few months after his abduction due to his disability and placed under a travel restriction while awaiting trial. However, he has since been convicted and sentenced to 5.5 years in prison.

The occupation prosecutor’s office has not disclosed the date of the so-called trial of his son, Artem Kudzhanov.

This article was prepared with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.