Disturbing news comes not only from Russia but also from other post-Soviet states. The story of Georgy Pirogov shows how cooperation between regimes that are politically similar can deprive a person of the protection of national borders, transparent legal procedures, and any opportunity to seek help.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Georgy Pirogov moved to Georgia, where he worked as an industrial climber. In the summer of 2024, he travelled to Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan, on a business assignment.

On the evening of 5 July, Georgy made contact for the last time. The following day, he disappeared near the town of Kungrad. His car was later found in Nukus, approximately 90 kilometres from the place where he vanished. According to his relatives, Georgy had planned to travel to Bukhara and fly back to Georgia from there.

But on 8 July 2024, only two days after his disappearance, Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court ordered Georgy Pirogov to be held in pre-trial detention on charges of high treason. A case file briefly appeared on the Moscow courts’ website and was subsequently hidden.

The chronology seems almost unbelievable. On 5 July, Georgy was still in Uzbekistan. On 6 July, he disappeared. By 8 July, a Russian court was already considering his detention.

How Georgy managed to travel from Uzbekistan to Moscow within such a short period remains unknown.

It is not known who detained him or on what grounds, whether any official extradition, deportation or expulsion order existed, or why his relatives were not informed. Neither the Russian nor the Uzbek authorities have disclosed the circumstances of his transfer across the border.

Georgy’s relatives and some human rights sources describe what happened as an abduction. However, in the absence of documents and direct evidence, it is more legally accurate to speak of a possible secret or unofficial transfer between two states. If no transparent legal procedure was conducted, this may have been not a lawful extradition but the de facto handover of a person to the Russian security services in circumvention of the safeguards provided by law.

In August 2024, during the consideration of an appeal against his detention, it became known that Pirogov had pleaded guilty, expressed remorse and provided a confession. However, the specific factual basis of the charge was never disclosed publicly. Only the general legal classification — high treason — is known, and the proceedings were held behind closed doors.

On 8 July 2026, the Moscow City Court sentenced Georgy Pirogov to 23 years in a high-security penal colony. The authorities did not publicly explain what acts he was accused of committing or what evidence formed the basis of the prosecution.

His relatives had asked the media to remain silent about the case, apparently hoping that the absence of publicity might improve Georgy’s situation. Nevertheless, the sentence proved exceptionally severe.

Without direct testimony, we cannot assert that he was subjected to torture. Yet the combination of circumstances — his sudden disappearance, the unknown manner in which he was transferred between two states, the closed trial, his confession and the 23-year sentence — gives grounds to raise the question of possible serious pressure, threats or intimidation.

Different procedures, the same result

The forms of cooperation between Russian security agencies and the authorities of neighbouring states vary.

In some cases, a formal extradition procedure is conducted. In others, a person is deported or administratively expelled. Sometimes people are handed over to the Russian military. In the most disturbing cases, detention and transfer take place without a transparent procedure, without access to a lawyer and without any opportunity to appeal the decision.

Legally, these are different situations. But the result is often the same: a person ends up in the hands of the state from which they had tried to escape.

Kyrgyzstan

In 2023, Russian anti-war activist Alexei Rozhkov was detained in Kyrgyzstan. According to journalists and human rights defenders, he was taken to Russia and handed over to the FSB without a public court decision authorising his extradition. He subsequently ended up in a Russian remand prison.

The case of activist Lev Skoryakin followed a similar pattern. The Kyrgyz authorities initially considered extraditing him and later reportedly refused the Russian request. Despite this, Skoryakin disappeared, was flown to Russia and handed over to the Russian security services. He later described being beaten during interrogation.

Kyrgyzstan was long regarded as a comparatively more open country in the region, partly because political power had changed hands there. However, the cases of Rozhkov and Skoryakin demonstrate that the preservation of certain democratic elements does not in itself guarantee protection to a person sought by the Russian security services.

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan has seen several cases that differed in their legal form but had similar consequences.

Russian serviceman Kamil Kasimov left for Kazakhstan after refusing to return to the war. According to an investigation by Mediazona, Russian operatives detained him on Kazakh territory, transported him to a Russian military base and then took him to Omsk. A court there sentenced him to six years in prison for desertion.

The Kazakh authorities later claimed that Kasimov had himself requested expulsion. Human rights defenders, however, pointed out that the court hearing took place without a lawyer and lasted approximately 13 minutes.

Federal Protective Service Major Mikhail Zhilin fled to Kazakhstan after mobilisation was announced and applied for asylum. After his application was rejected, he was handed over to Russia. A Russian court subsequently sentenced him to six and a half years in prison on charges of desertion and illegal border crossing.

In early 2026, Kazakhstan expelled Crimean resident Alexander Kachurkin to Russia. After his return, he was arrested on high-treason charges reportedly connected with money transfers to Ukraine.

Serviceman Semyon Bazhukov applied for asylum in Kazakhstan but was detained and handed over to the Russian military. Human rights defenders stated that this happened before the procedure for examining his request for international protection had been completed.

Not every case of unauthorised absence from a military unit is automatically political. Servicemen may leave military service for many different reasons. But the political and human rights dimension becomes clear when a person flees participation in the war, openly refuses to return to the front, applies for asylum and is then handed over to the state from which they sought protection.

Azerbaijan

In April 2025, Azerbaijan formally extradited Russian serviceman Sotim Savlatov, who was accused of unauthorised absence from his military unit. He was detained in Azerbaijan and handed over to Russia after the extradition request was approved.

The circumstances in which Savlatov left his unit were not publicly disclosed. It would therefore be incorrect to describe him as a political or anti-war activist without additional evidence. Nevertheless, his case forms part of the wider practice of returning Russian servicemen who left the country or military service during the war.

Russian citizen Khayal Vasilyev was also deported from Azerbaijan. The Russian authorities were seeking him in connection with his obligation to perform military service. After his detention, an Azerbaijani court ordered his deportation to Russia.

The further a country moves away from authoritarianism, the harder an unofficial transfer becomes

There is an understandable connection between the political system of a state and the safety of a persecuted person.

The more independent the courts, the stronger public oversight and the greater the real importance attached to the right of asylum, the more difficult it becomes to hand a person over to another state without examining the risk of political persecution, torture or cruel treatment.

Conversely, the weaker the institutions and the more dependent the courts, the easier it is to present a politically motivated transfer as an ordinary migration or criminal matter.

International law recognises the principle of non-refoulement. It prohibits returning a person to a country where they face persecution, torture, inhuman treatment or another form of serious and irreversible harm. This prohibition applies not only to conventional deportation but also to extradition and unofficial transfers.

The existence of an official document does not by itself make a decision just. The legality of a procedure must be assessed not only by the presence of a stamp or court order, but also by whether the person had access to a lawyer, could apply for asylum, appeal the decision and demonstrate that returning them would place them in danger.

Georgia — no longer an unambiguously safe case

Georgia occupies a special place in this picture.

The current Georgian authorities’ relationship with the Kremlin, their refusal to confront Moscow directly and the gradual deterioration in the position of Russian political emigrants are causing increasing concern. Since 2024, there have been more reports of journalists, activists and civil society representatives being refused entry, while the country’s migration policy has become noticeably stricter.

At the same time, according to publicly available information, Georgia has not yet developed a systematic practice of secretly transferring anti-war activists and deserters to Russia comparable to the documented cases in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

But it is no longer possible to conclude from this that Georgia is completely safe. Partially preserved independent institutions, an active society and the memory of Russian military aggression may still restrain the most dangerous decisions. At the same time, the growing number of entry refusals, legalisation problems and reports of pressure shows how quickly the space of protection can shrink.

Democratic institutions matter not merely as an abstract value. Sometimes they are precisely what separates an immigration decision from a person’s disappearance and a closed prison trial.

The system works both ways

Russia does not merely receive its own activists, political opponents and servicemen from neighbouring countries. It also hands people over to friendly authoritarian regimes.

Turkmenistan provides a particularly clear example.

Ashyrbay Bekiev lived in Russia and sought protection from persecution in his home country. Despite interim measures previously ordered by the European Court of Human Rights, the Russian authorities deported him to Turkmenistan in August 2023 on the grounds of migration violations.

A closed court later sentenced Bekiev to 23 years in prison. According to reports, the hearing lasted less than ten minutes, and the charges were never publicly disclosed.

Russia handed Saddam Gulamov, who had criticised the Turkmen authorities on social media, over to Turkmenistan in March 2024. In May of the same year, the Ashgabat City Court sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment. The specific factual basis of the charges also remained unclear.

What we are witnessing is a kind of exchange of people whom authoritarian states consider dangerous.

Some regimes return to Russia activists, people accused of high treason and servicemen who have refused to participate in the war. Russia, in turn, hands over critics, political refugees and opposition figures to friendly regimes.

Sometimes a person is secretly placed on an aircraft. Sometimes the transfer is formalised as extradition, deportation or administrative expulsion. Sometimes the authorities claim that the person agreed to return voluntarily.

But the essence remains unchanged when a state knowingly hands a person over to the authorities from whom they sought protection without ensuring a fair examination of the risk of persecution.

Authoritarian mutual aid

The most disturbing fact is that Russian citizens fleeing political repression or participation in the war cannot feel safe in states where power is not constrained by an independent judiciary and where law is transformed into an instrument of political expediency.

Under such conditions, a national border ceases to provide protection. An agreement between the security agencies of two politically similar regimes may be enough for a person to disappear in one country and appear in a prison in another two days later.

The case of Georgy Pirogov should therefore not be seen merely as an isolated and mysterious disappearance in Karakalpakstan. It may be part of a broader mechanism of authoritarian mutual aid, in which the law enforcement and security services of neighbouring states help one another retrieve inconvenient individuals.

Today, one regime hands another its political opponent. Tomorrow, it receives one of its own in return.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to explain these events as isolated coincidences. More and more evidence points to a functioning system.

Source: the Telegram channel “Politzek-Info” — https://t.me/politzekinfo/6148, https://t.me/politzekinfo/9616