03 September 2025
Four Years in Captivity: The Akhtemov Brothers Behind Bars
Today, September 3, 2025, marks four years since the arrest of Crimean Tatar activists, brothers Asan and Aziz Akhtemov. Their story has become one of many examples of the persecution of the Crimean Tatar people and the suppression of civil liberties in occupied Crimea.
On September 3, 2021, security forces of the occupation administration conducted raids on the homes of the Akhtemov brothers, accusing them of “sabotage” on a gas pipeline near the village Perevalne (Crimean Tatar: Anğara). A few days later, the FSB claimed that the brothers were allegedly acting on instructions from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Directorate and the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.Human rights defenders and lawyers confirmed that the brothers were abducted from their home and subjected to psychological pressure and torture. Despite the lack of credible evidence, in 2022 the occupation court sentenced Aziz to 15 years in a high-security penal colony and Asan to 13 years.
Aziz Akhtemov is currently held in Penal Colony No. 2 in Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, where he was transferred in the autumn of 2023. Asan Akhtemov is imprisoned in the “Vladimir Central” – one of Russia’s most notorious high-security prisons. Aziz’s wife, Adile, told journalists that even delivering letters and news from home to her husband remains a major challenge: the system isolates political prisoners from their families and any support.
The persecution of the Akhtemov brothers, together with the case of Mejlis Deputy Chairman Nariman Dzhelyal, has become one of the most striking examples of pressure on the Crimean Tatar community.
The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has repeatedly emphasized that the brothers’ sentences are politically motivated and their prolonged detention is a violation of international law and fundamental human rights.
Four years of captivity have not broken the spirit of the Akhtemov brothers. Their story has become a symbol of the Crimean Tatars’ struggle for freedom and truth. Today, human rights defenders are calling on Ukrainians and the international community not to forget all those illegally imprisoned in Russian jails and to intensify pressure on Russia for their release.