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Russian FSB escalate abductions and terror against women in occupied Crimea

11.08.2025

Halya Coynash

Three women who vanished in March 2024, as well as Tetiana Strifanova, whom the FSB abducted in February 2025 are being held incommunicado, without any legal status or charges having been laid

Tetiana Shtrifanova Photo Crimean Tatar Resource Centre

Russia is increasingly targeting women for its politically motivated prosecutions and ‘trials’, with a terrifying number of such cases in occupied Crimea more reminiscent of enforced disappearances than of arrests. Three women – Elvira Aboiazova; Larysa Haidai and Tetiana Pavlenko (Symonenko) – have just been ‘found’ in SIZO [remand prison] No. 2 in occupied Simferopol, 18 months after they were abducted and vanished. The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre [CTRC] has now learned that a fourth woman, Tetiana Shtrifanova, who disappeared on 12 February 2025 is also imprisoned in the same Russian FSB-controlled SIZO. There is nothing to suggest that proper charges have been laid against any of the women, with all of them illegally held incommunicado and, almost certainly, denied access to an independent lawyer. Russia’s FSB is notorious for using such periods to try to extract ‘confessions’ through torture, threats and other forms of duress.

CTRC first learned of the disappearance of Larysa Haidai on 27 March 2024 and of Tetiana Pavlenko (Symoenko) and Elvira Aboiazova the following day a year ago. It was, however, only on 4 August 2025 that the human rights group was able to confirm that all three women are imprisoned at SIZO No.2. This is clearly through CTRC’s own sources as there has still been no official acknowledgement that the women are in custody, nor of why. Three women have thus been held prisoner for over 16 months with no information as to what they are accused of and whether they have any formal procedural status.

On 8 August, CTRC reported that Tetiana Shtrifanova (b. 28.10.1980) from Yevpatoria is also imprisoned in SIZO No. 2. More is known about her seizure by the FSB at around 8 a.m. on 12 February 2025 as she was initially taken prisoner, on the street, together with her sister, Inna Strifanova. Both women were taken to the building which the FSB are using as their headquarters in occupied Sevastopol. After questioning, Inna Strifanova was released, while Tetiana remained held by the FSB. Despite it being clear that she had been detained by the FSB, the latter refused to provide any information about her whereabouts, or about her legal status. In reporting the situation, Eskender Bariev, CTRC Head, noted that the occupation enforcement bodies do, however, refuse to initiate proceedings over the person’s illegal deprivation of liberty, claiming there to be “no indications of a crime”.

Although Russia brought enforced disappearances to Crimea with its invasion in 2014, the number of abductions and level of overt lawlessness have risen sharply since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The FSB are concealing the whereabouts of several men and women seized in late 2023 and 2024, as well as at least five people, besides Tetiana Shtrifanova, abducted in 2025. If, before 2022, it was mainly men who were targeted, an increasing number of women have been abducted and later sentenced to horrific terms of imprisonment of spurious charges. 58-year-old IT specialist Serhiy Hrishchenkov from occupied Sevastopol has been held incommunicado since the FSB burst into his apartment on 6 May 2025 and took him away. Russia appears to be planning to ‘try’ the Ukrainian on ‘treason’ charges, but is refusing to provide any information about where he is held. There is also no information about the whereabouts of Natalia Poliukh (b. 1975) and her husband Oleh Platonov (b. 1963) who were abducted on 9 April 2025 and whose small son has been placed in care. CTRC earlier reported that Susana Izmailova was taken away on 25 March 2025 by the FSB who carried out a search of her home in the village of Sofiivka (Simferopol raion). Tamara Chernukha (b. 1963), an ambulance paramedic from Chornomorske disappeared on 5 February 2025, with the Russian FSB and ‘police’ in occupied Crimea clearly knowing where the is but refusing to say. Lera Dzhemilova was seized by the FSB on 21 May 2024, with Russia probably also planning ‘treason’ charges. Nothing has been seen of 45-year-old Anatoliy Kobzar since 5 March 2024, although it is clear the FSB are behind his disappearance.

CTRC reports that at least 26 women either from occupied Crimea or illegally taken and held prisoner there are currently in Russian captivity.

In prison colonies