You may or may not have done anything illegal; it really doesn’t matter. If you are an immigrant in Russia from one of the five former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan, your days of freedom are numbered.

In Moscow and other cities across Russia, migrant workers from those regions are being swept up by the thousands . . . not only for purposes of deportation, but in huge numbers for forced conscription into the Russian military to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. (More about that in a separate article.)

Without a trial, or any form of due process, they are being beaten and coerced into signing military contracts. They are indeed hostages to Vladimir Putin’s dual obsessions of ridding Russia of “undesirables,” and of winning his war against Ukraine at any price.

So today they are added — though without individual identification — to a new category of our known hostages: Immigrant Detainees.

*. *. *

And needless to say, we again remember those whom we have known for far too long:

Immigrant Detainees:

Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Prisoners of War:

The People of Ukraine
The Azov 12

Endangered Exiles:

Mikita Losik
Yulia Navalnaya
Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents

Political Prisoners:

In Azerbaijan:

The “Azerbaijan 7”:
— Farid Mehralizada
— Ulvi Hasanli
— Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
— Mahammad Kekalov
— Hafiz Babali
— Nargiz Absalamova
— Elnara Gasimova

In Belarus:

Ales Bialiatski
Andrei Chapiuk
Uladzimir Labkovich
Ihar Losik
Marfa Rabkova
Valiantsin Stafanovic
Yuras Zyankovich

In Russia:

David Barnes
Gordon Black
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman
Stephen James Hubbard
Sergey Karelin
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Michael Travis Leake
Aleksei Liptser
Grigory Melkonyants
Nika Novak
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Grigory Skvortsov
Eugene Spector
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland

. . . and the countless others of whom I may not be aware.

The fight continues.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/24/25