Andrei Kolomiets speaks about circumstances of his adoption of Islam

Ukrainian citizen Andrei Kolomiets has been released after ten years of imprisonment. At present, he stays in a deportation centre in Kuban. The man converted to Islam, as only Muslims supported him during his imprisonment.

Andrei Kolomiets, a citizen of Ukraine, who served his 10-year sentence to imprisonment in Russia1, currently stays in the Temporary Detention Centre for Foreign Citizens in the Gulkevichsky District of the Krasnodar Territory. 

On May 17, Ukrainian citizen Andrei Kolomiets himself reported to a correspondent of the “Caucasian Knot” about his situation.

“I have no complaints about my detention in the centre. We are allowed to make phone calls every day from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and parcels are allowed at any day, except for holidays. Visits are allowed once a month from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.,” Andrei Kolomiets noted.

The man also spoke about how he converted to Islam. “It was at the very beginning of my imprisonment. The situation was dark: I was facing life imprisonment, and there were threats from [the special services]. The only people who supported me then were Muslims in Nalchik and then in the penal colony. That’s how I came to Islam,” the citizen of Ukraine explained.

Maria Spasibukhova, an advocate of Ukrainian citizen Andrei Kolomiets, has told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent that there is no certainty yet about when her client will be deported. “They are only taking written consent from him and other Ukrainian citizens about their deportation through third countries,” the advocate noted.

According to the advocate’s explanation, Andrei Kolomiets’s Ukrainian passport has expired, and his temporary identity card is “at the stage of registration.” “The big problem now is not even in the ID documents, but in crossing the border. The direct borders are closed, and there are big difficulties with moving through third countries,” advocate Maria Spasibukhova noted. At the same time, Georgia, through which similar deportations were previously carried out, is not giving the consent to them now,” the advocate has emphasized.

Svetlana Gannushkina*, the head of the “Migration and Law” network, notes that formally the period of detention in the Temporary Detention Centre for Foreign Citizens cannot exceed three months. “After that, the court must request the organization that made the decision to deport the person where he or she will be deported and how the process of deportation will be organized. If necessary, the court may give other three months to resolve the above issues on deportation. However, after that, if no deportation took place, the person, in theory, should be released. But there are many cases when the court extends the person’s stay the Temporary Detention Centre for Foreign Citizens, thereby violating both the government decree and the decision of the Russian Supreme Court (SC) on this matter,” Svetlana Gannushkina* claimed.

At the Temporary Detention Centre for Foreign Citizens itself, an officer on duty told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent that there are currently 129 people being kept in the centre. According to the duty officer’s explanation, the maximum period of a person’s detention is not limited. “It all depends on what the court decides. If necessary, the court can extend the period of detention,” the duty officer noted.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 18, 2025 at 06:24 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.

**On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned the activities in Russia of the Meta Company, owning the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in connection with extremist activities.