Woman detained at Russian border after Ukraine visit missing for over 2 months

A woman who was detained at the Russian border upon re-entering the country after visiting family in the Ukrainian city of Kherson has now been missing for close to three months, Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti reported on Monday.

A couple named only as Natalya and Yury A. took a pro-Russian stance and moved with their young son to the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, receiving Russian citizenship, when Russian troops left their home city of Kherson after it was liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in November 2022.

Yury told Ostorozhno Novosti that Natalya returned to Kherson in June to visit her grandmother who was about to undergo surgery and was detained at passport control at Sochi Airport on her way back into Russia on 3 August.

Natalya called Yury that evening to say Federal Security Service (FSB) officers had taken her phone and bank cards and asked her “to confess to something she hadn’t done”. Yury has not heard from Natalya ever since.

Yury later learned that Natalya had been imprisoned for 11 days for “insubordination to a serviceman”. The family’s lawyer was told at the temporary detention facility where Natalya was held that she had refused to show her passport at the border.

Natalya was due for release on 14 August. The Interior Ministry subsequently told Yury his wife had been taken to the city of Volgograd by FSB officers while they “carried out operational and investigative measures”, but said there was no ongoing investigation against Natalya.

Though Yury reported his wife missing in late August, she has never appeared on any official missing persons lists. He said an Interior Ministry employee in Sochi told him that a criminal case had been opened against Natalya and advised him “to butt out”, though this information has never been confirmed.

Yury has contacted the FSB, the Prosecutor’s Office and other official bodies, but no one has been able to inform him of his wife’s whereabouts. Russia’s Investigative Committee said that Natalya had been released at the end of her sentence, according to Ostorozhno Novosti.