On the morning of November 19, 2024, US citizen Timur Kishukov was supposed to fly back to his home near Chicago, where the truck driver had started his own logistics company earlier in the year, after a visit to his native region of Kabardino-Balkaria, in Russia's North Caucasus.
He didn't make it to the airport. On the eve of his return flight, the 37-year-old father of four was detained by Federal Security Service (FSB) officers who bound his wrists with tape, covered his head and face with a jacket, and drove him away without saying where they were taking him, a person close to Kishukov's family told RFE/RL.
Kishukov was brought to a basement room where he was questioned for over three hours about his stance on Russia's war in Ukraine and badgered about Russians who have worked for US intelligence -- including a purported former CIA informant who was fatally injured by a pipe bomb blast in New Jersey in 1985.
The officers proposed that Kishukov work with Russian intelligence, providing information about people in his Russian-speaking community in the United States and what the officers suggested were ties between its members and the CIA, the person close to the family said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
Threatened By Criminal Charges
When he refused, they began to beat him and threatened to hit him with criminal charges, saying it would be easy to find witnesses who would "say whatever is needed," Kishukov said at an initial custody hearing in November 2024, according to the source.
By midnight, the authorities had launched a formal investigation, and the regional branch of the FSB charged Kishukov with participation in a terrorist group, undergoing terrorism training, and participation in an illegal armed formation -- charges often pressed against suspects in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus, where two wars in the Chechnya region in the 1990s-2000s spawned an Islamist insurgency.
A source close to Kishukov's family said Russian authorities reported that they looked into his complaint of ill-treatment in custody but found no wrongdoing by law enforcement.
Kishukov was sent to pretrial detention in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, where a source close to him told RFE/RL he was put in in a cold, isolated single-person cell from December 2024 through February this year, with jailers responding to complaints by saying he was being held there because there was no other free space in the detention center.
Accused Of Fighting In Syria
Kishukov, who denies the charges, is now on trial at a military court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. He could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if convicted of participation in a terrorist group.
Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons told RFE/RL that Kishukov is accused of fighting in Syria against the Russian-backed former government of Bashar al-Assad and alongside insurgents from the North Caucasus. The sources said the authorities have three witnesses, whose identities are being kept secret, who claim they remember Kishukov from Syria.
A separate source familiar with the case who also spoke on condition of anonymity told RFE/RL that the Russian authorities have presented no other evidence supporting the charges. In the early stages of Kishukov's prosecution, a defense lawyer argued there was no evidence to support the allegations against him.
Supporters say he and his family were in Turkey during the time his accusers claim he was in Syria.
Acquittals are extremely rare in Russia, and a source with knowledge of the case voiced concern that there was little chance Kishukov would escape conviction.
Kishukov, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois, became a US citizen in 2017. He was in the United States as early as 2012, according to information from the Illinois secretary of state's office.
He is one of several US citizens who remain behind bars in Russia following a series of prisoner swaps over the past few years. The United States has referred to some Americans jailed in Russia as hostages.
Ksenia Karelina, who was imprisoned in Russia for donating $51 to a US-based Ukrainian aid charity, was freed by Russia in April in exchange for Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen who allegedly exported sensitive microelectronics.
In February, the United States released confessed Russian cybercriminal Aleksandr Vinnik in exchange for the American teacher Marc Fogel.
In August 2024, Russia freed 16 people, including RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Eight Russians were returned home in the largest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War.
Responding to questions from RFE/RL, a US State Department spokesperson said the United States is aware that Kishukov is detained in Russia and that it is providing consular support. The spokesperson declined to comment further, citing "privacy and other considerations."
