A Crimean woman recounted her torture after being detained at Sochi airport.
Victoria Sergeeva, detained at Sochi airport in the summer of 2025, spoke of being forced to incriminate herself and tortured by security forces.
"Caucasian Knot" wrote that Kurgan resident Elizaveta Ostroukhova, who arrived from Turkey in the summer of 2025, was unable to return home because she was sent to Sochi under administrative arrest at least eight times. According to Ostroukhova's lawyer, two more women, also arriving from Turkey, were detained in Sochi under similar circumstances. Their cases are unfolding according to an identical pattern: a series of administrative arrests without criminal prosecution.
The story of a Crimean resident detained upon arrival in Sochi in the summer of 2025 was published today by the legal community "First Department"*. Victoria Sergeeva was detained on the morning of August 21, 2025, after landing at Sochi airport.
According to Victoria Sergeeva, at the border, security officials demanded her Ukrainian passport, saw stamps indicating recent trips to Kyiv-controlled territories, then confiscated her phone and threatened to unblock her Ukrainian banking apps.
Sergeeva holds both Russian and Ukrainian passports, her son testified in October. "She was detained and transferred to the temporary detention facility in Psou that same day, where she became ill and an ambulance was called. She was taken to another location that same day," the OVD-Info* human rights project quoted a relative as saying on October 2.
FSB officers found data on several hryvnia transactions in Ukrainian bank apps—according to security officials, these were transfers to the Ukrainian armed forces. Sergeeva claims she has been using Ukrainian bank apps since 2021 and did not make these transfers because she had long ago lost the SIM card linked to her account.
According to Sergeeva, security officials soon began threatening her children. After a lengthy interrogation, they stated that the woman would only face a fine, and under pressure, Sergeeva signed the confession they provided. She was then arrested repeatedly for administrative offenses—first for 13 days for failing to present a passport, then for another 15 days for "disobeying police," and so on. Throughout this time, Sergeeva was denied access to lawyers and family.
"During one of her arrests, she was placed in a cell "with feces," denied water or medication, and when she became ill, no doctor was called." Sergeeva claims that she was given food and pills only after she signed the "right" protocol," the First Department* publication states.
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