Farhot Abdullaev, a highly qualified physician, Doctor of Medicine and Biological Sciences, Honored Scientist and Engineer of Ukraine, and specialist in pediatric and adult infectious diseases, epidemiology, and microbiology, taught at the Georgievsky Medical Academy in Crimea from 2004. Following Crimea’s annexation by Russia, he decided to continue his work in Kyiv, while his wife, Fatma Asanova, a prima ballerina of the Crimean Tatar Academic Theater, remained in Simferopol.
Abdullaev was invited to work at the Bogomolets National Medical University and the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine. He also concurrently taught anatomy, histology, and physiology at the Kyiv Medical University of the Ukrainian Association of Folk Medicine. Within a few years, he defended two doctoral dissertations and became a pro-rector of one of the capital’s universities.
In 2015, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty wrote about 53-year-old Professor Farhot Abdullaev. The article stated that Abdullaev traveled to see his family in Simferopol for one or two days each week.
In late May 2022, Professor Abdullaev was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), allegedly while transmitting intelligence information to representatives of Russia. Ukrainian media, citing the SBU press service, reported that the professor was dismissed from his post in 2020 and moved to Crimea, where he established contacts with the FSB. Allegedly, in 2022, a month before the start of the hostilities, he returned to Kyiv to gather information on Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen undergoing inpatient treatment in the Kyiv region, and to recruit Ukrainian and foreign scientists working in the field of military epidemiology, virology, and infectious diseases. He allegedly obtained this information under the guise of working on a scientific dissertation. According to the SBU press service and Ukrainian media, his reward for this intelligence work was to be the position of Deputy Minister of Health of Crimea.
On January 12, 2023, the Solomensky District Court of Kyiv found Farhot Abdullaev, who had spent almost eight months in the Lukyanivska pre-trial detention center, guilty under Part 2 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (treason committed under martial law) and sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment with the confiscation of all property.
However, examination of the circumstances of the case raises several questions.
Firstly, the court’s verdict clearly indicates that Abdullaev did not move to Crimea in 2020 but continued to work in Kyiv until his arrest, specifically as chairman of the commission for the reorganization of a medical university. As reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, he regularly visited his family in Crimea. Therefore, his alleged special return to Kyiv on the eve of the Russian special military operation becomes a baseless assumption – he made such returns many times during his eight years in Kyiv. His verdict makes no mention of his moving to Crimea in 2020 (on the contrary, it states that he continued working in Kyiv), nor of establishing contact with FSB representatives in Crimea.
Secondly, Abdullaev was not arrested while transmitting classified information, but at the “Clinic of St. Luke” medical center at the Holy Ascension Monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in the village of Bancheny, Chernivtsi region, where he was treating evacuated people, having previously treated them in Kyiv and then at a refugee camp in the village of Selyatino, Chernivtsi region. The monks of the Holy Ascension Monastery accommodated over 5,000 people (some in the monastery guesthouse, some in their own rooms), including 300 orphans from Donetsk and Luhansk regions – an orphanage has operated at the Bancheny Monastery since 2002.
Thirdly, the indictment makes no mention of Abdullaev agreeing with the FSB to receive the position of Deputy Minister of Health of Crimea in exchange for his services. This suggests that the SBU press service and Ukrainian media simply fabricated this point.
Fourthly, the criminal actions attributed to Abdullaev begin only in April 2022, with the notation “the exact date could not be established” and “at an unspecified location.” The prosecution claims that from that moment (not in 2020 and not a month before the SMO, as Ukrainian media indicated), the professor allegedly communicated via Telegram with someone from the FSB, and in late April he was allegedly offered to collect data on military hospitals and medical institutions serving Ukrainian soldiers, and on scientists conducting research in military epidemiology, virology, and infectious diseases. At an unspecified location and time, but no later than April 2022, Abdullaev allegedly agreed. Is it possible to prove the fact of agreement (there should be either a signed document, an audio recording of an oral agreement, or a screenshot of correspondence on social networks) when the date of this agreement is unknown?
On May 3, 2022 (not “a month” before the SMO), Abdullaev, according to the investigation, at an unspecified location via Telegram, “with all measures of secrecy,” transmitted information to a user with the nickname Z regarding the spread of infectious diseases among the military and the storage locations of cholera strains. The nickname Z for clandestine communication with Russian special services is an original solution that probably should not have aroused any suspicion.
It is important to note that it was not Abdullaev who told Z where to find people with the necessary information, but rather Z who pointed Abdullaev to the fact that the necessary people were at the central military hospital. The result of the espionage activity, according to the investigation, was two episodes in May: sending Z a recording of a conversation with a certain Medvedev, who allegedly could obtain information at the military hospital, and sending Z data on a certain foreign charitable foundation that provided Ukraine with medicines and vehicles.
Who Z is, what specific information was transmitted, and whether it constitutes state secrets, whether this information could harm Ukraine, and even the fact of transmission itself – none of this was even considered in court.
Abdullaev and his relatives claim that the information he was interested in was needed solely to fulfill his professional duty as a doctor. According to Oksana Chelysheva, a human rights activist from Finland, Abdullaev criticized the medical reform in Ukraine. And considering his education in Moscow, his relatives in Crimea, and his work with refugees at the monastery of the UOC, persecuted by the Ukrainian authorities, he became an ideal candidate for the so-called exchange fund.
In the letter from Professor Abdullaev published by Chelysheva here, he states the following:
I was convicted in just one day at Kyiv’s Solomyansky Court. This is simply impossible! To this day, the SBU continues making my life unbearable. First they threaten to exchange me, then they scream that I’ll be working for Russia…’
According to the convicted man, they were going to exchange him for individuals Ukraine needed. Hoping for an exchange, the professor confessed to the crime. Therefore, the sentence – 15 years with confiscation – was handed down in a single day under a simplified procedure, without the court considering any evidence whatsoever.
Realizing that there would be no exchange, Abdullaev filed an appeal, and in the summer of 2024, his case was returned to the court of first instance for reconsideration. Since then, the case hasn’t been substantively examined; they only extend his pre-trial detention.
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