2w ago

Russian student who planned to fight for Ukraine faces terror charges after prisoner swap return

novayagazeta.eu

Russian student who planned to fight for Ukraine faces terror charges after prisoner swap return — Novaya Gazeta Europe

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Ukraine has handed over to Russia as part of an exchange a 21-year-old student who had plans to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), investigative media outlet Verstka reported on Friday, citing his friends and Ukrainian military sources.
According to Verstka, Alexey Gerasimov was a former student of journalism at the Chuvash State University, who, friends said, openly supported Chuvashia’s secession from Russia. Chuvashia is a republic in Russia’s Volga region where local Chuvash, a Turkic ethnic group, form a two-thirds majority of the population.
“He would debate teachers, saying it was time for Chuvashia to secede from Russia. The teachers reported him and he was mobilised into the army,” Mishshi Oreshnikov, a Chuvash activist who fights for the AFU, told Verstka, though Verstka was unable to confirm this.
Fucking hell. Both Russia and China’s erasure of indigenous Turkic peoples is really bleak.
The key element missing from the story is why he was returned to Russia. Ukraine allows you to opt out of prisoner swaps for whatever reason, so it kinda sounds like he wanted to go back.
- He might have fallen through the cracks because he's an odd case:
  He's not a prisoner of war
  He's not a Ukrainian citizen either
  Or he could have missed his family and friends, simply been naive as to the treatment he would face when he returned to Russia after leaving to fight for Ukraine.
- Could you cite a legal document to that end? Per the cited court decision, he was an illegal immigrant awaiting deportation.
  
  You're right, that case is different because he crossed into Ukraine by himself. I missed that bit in the article. The law only applies to POWs.
  
  Sounds like he would have had a pretty legit claim to asylum...

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