The authorities in Kazakhstan have deported the 25-year-old IT specialist, Aleksandr Kacikurkin, to Russia, where he was immediately arrested on charges of “high treason”. The information was made public by the human rights project “Pervîi Otdel” (First Department). The basis of the criminal case is money transfers to Ukraine.
According to human rights defenders, Kacikurkin is a citizen of Ukraine and grew up in Crimea. After the annexation of the peninsula, the young man was “imposed Russian citizenship”, notes “Pervîi Otdel”. In recent years, the IT specialist lived in Almaty, where he moved for political reasons, and worked as a DevOps engineer, collaborating with the American company OpenAI.
On January 28, the police in the Bostandîk district of Almaty quickly drew up two administrative protocols in his name — for crossing the street in an unauthorized place and for smoking a hookah in an enclosed space. According to the “Pervîi Otdel” project, both protocols were fabricated.
On the basis of these, the police requested the court to expel Kacikurkin from Kazakhstan for “disrespect for the laws and sovereignty” of the republic. The entire process — from the preparation of documents to the trial and deportation — took only a few hours, while normally such procedures take place over several weeks, emphasizes “Pervîi Otdel”.