Abducted abroad: How Russia seizes its citizens in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan — and puts them on trial back home

Meduza reports that leaving Russia has not put its critics and war deserters beyond the reach of the security services. In an investigation, the outlet documents how Russians who fled after the full-scale invasion and the 2022 mobilization have been tracked down in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan — some extradited, some deported on various pretexts, and some, their relatives say, abducted outright and driven back across the border. Among the cases Meduza recounts is Georgy Pirogov, who vanished during a work trip to Uzbekistan and later turned up in a Moscow detention center; the Moscow City Court sentenced him in July to twenty-three years in a maximum-security colony on treason charges. Others describe being tortured or handed lengthy terms for desertion and terrorism, a pattern Meduza says shows the war's reach extending well past Russia's own frontiers.

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