Lenye Umerova

Lenye Umerova, a native of Crimea, moved to Kiev in 2015 without obtaining a Russian passport. In December of 2022 she travelled to her homeland to visit her father, who was diagnosed with cancer.

When Umerova was travelling on the bus "Tbilisi-Simferopol", she was detained by Russian security forces at the checkpoint "Verkhny Lars" and taken to Vladikavkaz. The next day she was found guilty of violating the rules of crossing the Russian border (part 1 of article 18.1 of the Administrative Offences Code). She spent three months in detention in the Centre for Temporary Detention of Foreign Citizens.

In March, the Court of Cassation cancelled the decision to expel Umerova, so she should have been released - instead, she was detained again. After that, Umerova was charged with disobeying the demand of a police officer four times (Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences) and four times she was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. The term of the last arrest was to expire on 12th of May. However, on 4th May it became known that FSB officers took Umerova out of the temporary detention centre in Vladikavkaz, where she had been staying for the last months. The next day the court arrested her on grounds of an espionage criminal case.

On 13th September, 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Lenye Umerova had returned to Ukraine as a result of an exchange of prisoners.