The man next to him is also wearing the traditional “telnyashka” undershirt of the Russian armed forces, which is blue and white striped. After his capture, the Kyrgyz National Security Committee released a photo of Askar Kubanychbek-uulu taking a selfie while dressed in military fatigues and a baseball cap. After signing up to participate in Moscow’s war in Ukraine in the summer of 2022, this Kyrgyz citizen most likely posed for this portrait in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Luhansk. Currently, Kubanychbek-uulu is away from the battlefield, serving a 10-year sentence in a penitentiary in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, for his mercenary activities.
Moscow’s reliant Central Asian ally is under increasing pressure to back down after Russian authorities publicly opposed to the court judgment and admitted they were considering granting Kubanychbek-uulu citizenship post-factum. According to Valentina Chupik, a Russian expert on migrant rights, this is the only case of a Central Asian receiving “deserved punishment” in his home country for joining Russia’s war in Ukraine since Moscow launched its brutal, full-scale invasion in February 2022. It would be “a precedent of the opposite kind,” Chupik says, if he were released. The core foundations of Kyrgyzstan’s judicial and investigative system are at risk.
Chupik said that if the Kyrgyz authorities gave in to the Russian Federation, they would do irreparable harm to their own prestige. Close family members of Kubanychbek-uulu have contradicted the film studio technician’s court testimony on his role in the Ukraine war. The fact that Kubanychbek-uulu returned to Kyrgyzstan in May to serve his sentence after having lost his Uzbek citizenship due to his ailing father is beyond dispute. But in a July 21 Telegram message regarding Kubanychbek-uulu’s plight, Kirill Kabanov, a member of Russia’s Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, stated it was time to change that situation.
Kabanov claimed that he submitted an application to the Russian ministries of the interior and foreign affairs “with a request that they grant [Kubanychbek-uulu] a passport in the Bishkek [prison] and demand that authorities of Kyrgyzstan free him and transfer him to Russia.” If Kyrgyzstan declines, Moscow should “use all possible mechanisms of pressure as a response to what are clearly unfriendly actions on the part of Kyrgyz authorities,” he added. Kabanov’s council has no executive authority. But on August 2 Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova confirmed that Moscow is taking action over Kubanychbek-uulu, saying that the request was “being processed.”
Kyrgyzstan hasn’t publicly responded to Russian authorities’ statements yet. After President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilization in September, migrants born in Central Asia, both with and without Russian citizenship, have emerged as significant targets of Russia’s military recruitment effort. In the same week, the Russian State Duma passed a measure that would allow migrants a “simplified” route to Russian citizenship if they served for one year “in the armed forces of the Russian Federation, other forces, or military formations.” Central Asian states, whose residents make up the bulk of Russia’s millions-strong guest-worker cohort, quickly voiced opposition despite their countries’ neutral posture on the conflict.
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