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Kazakhstan Deports Crimean Open AI Developer to Russia, Where He’s Charged With Treason
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Kazakhstan has deported 25-year-old Crimean IT specialist Oleksandr Kachkurkin, who had been living in Almaty for several years. Upon arrival in Russia, he was detained by Russian security officers directly aboard the aircraft on suspicion of state treason related to money transfers to Ukraine.
The human rights project “Pervyi Otdel” reported on February 1 that the deportation was based on falsified administrative offense records.
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Kachkurkin is a Ukrainian citizen who was born and raised in Crimea. After Russia occupied the peninsula, he was forcibly issued a Russian passport. He was 14 years old at the time. He later left for Kazakhstan for political reasons.
While in Kazakhstan, Kachkurkin worked as a DevOps engineer and IT developer and collaborated with the US nonprofit organization OpenAI.
According to a statement by Didar Akhanov, head of the Bostandyk district police department in Almaty, obtained by “Pervyi Otdel,” Kachkurkin was charged with two administrative violations: crossing the street in an unauthorized location and smoking a hookah indoors. The rights group says both charges were fabricated.
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Citing these records, police asked the court to deport the Crimean resident for “disrespect for the laws and sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan” and the need to “terminate and prevent offenses.”
Normally, drafting administrative reports, reviewing them, and filing a deportation request with the court takes several weeks. In this case, however, Kazakh authorities expelled Kachkurkin within hours. After landing in Russia, he was detained on the plane and taken to court, which ordered him held in custody on charges of alleged state treason.
“This is a case where we see the use of Kazakhstan’s law enforcement bodies and laws to persecute people on behalf of Russian security services. We are forced to state that Kazakhstan is ceasing to be a safe and law-based state even for Ukrainian citizens,” said lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov, according to the human right project.
Kachkurkin faces up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.
Earlier, the Dutch House of Representatives formally recognized the 1944 forced deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as an act of genocide.
The motion notes that since Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, “many Crimean Tatars have been unjustly imprisoned, subjected to torture by Russia, or have disappeared without a trace.” On this basis, it concludes that “Russia has most likely continued its policy of genocide against the Crimean Tatars.”
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