Women who arrived in Sochi from Istanbul have been held in a detention centre for weeks without being released.

Elizaveta Ostroukhov, who flew in from Istanbul, stopped making contact on 17 July, immediately after landing in Sochi, her son Danil told OVD-Info.

It was later revealed that Ostroukhov was detained right at the airport by FSB officers, who explained that she “had shown a certain interest and taken certain actions towards joining the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

She was placed under administrative arrest at the airport for disobeying a police officer (Article 19.3, Part 1 of the Administrative Code), and taken to Detention Centre No. 3 in Khosta, a district of Sochi on the Black Sea coast. Her arrest has since been extended eight times; on 20 September, she was once again given ten days. Ostroukhov admitted guilt.

“I don’t know, maybe she’s just tired of fighting, or maybe they threatened her again, like during the interrogation. I can’t understand what is the point of these endless cycles when they already have everything they need for the case? There is evidence, cooperation and a confession, so what is the point of these administrative carousels?” the arrested woman’s son said in confusion.

According to him, there’s a likelihood that she fell for an FSB sting operation and was corresponding with an undercover account.

A similar detention took place on 21 August, when Viktoria Sergeeva arrived in Sochi from Istanbul, her son told OVD-Info.

“All we managed to find out at the time was that she was detained, and on the same day transferred to a temporary detention facility in Psou, a settlement just outside Sochi on the border with Abkhazia, where she felt unwell and an ambulance doctor was called, and the same day she was moved to another location,” Sergeeva’s relative said. According to him, the reason given for her detention was some alleged donations.

On 30 September, he was told that his mother was still being held at Sochi’s Detention Centre-3, not far from Matsesta station, another local area. Every 15 days the authorities let her out, but as soon as she leaves the gates, she is met and immediately slapped with a new protocol for disobeying the police. The next period expired on 29 September, but Sergeeva did not make contact, and the following day a new charge was filed against her in court.

Sergeeva lives in Crimea and holds both Ukrainian and Russian citizenship.

“In practice, there are cases where people are kept in detention for a year or two under these ‘carousel’ arrests. This time does not count towards any future criminal sentence (and such repeated administrative arrests are often just preparation for a criminal case). Challenging these cycles is extremely difficult, because police officers’ reports are accepted without question, and CCTV footage is not always released or sometimes simply isn’t available in the right place,” OVD-Info lawyer Mariya Spasibukhova commented. “Such uncertainty about a person’s status is unlawful. If there are not enough grounds to open a criminal case against a particular person, they should be released immediately.”