Timur Kishukov, a native of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus region of Russia, became a U.S. citizen in 2017. In late 2024, he flew from his home in Chicago back to his former home to visit friends and relatives. On November 19th, he was to return to the U.S., but never made it to the airport.

The night before his scheduled departure, he was detained by Russian FSB (successor to the KGB) officers, who bound his wrists with tape, covered his head and face with a jacket, and took him away without advising anyone where they were taking him.

He was brought to a basement room and questioned for over three hours about his views on Russia’s war in Ukraine, and about any Russians he may know who have worked for U.S. intelligence. They then attempted to recruit him to work with Russian intelligence, spying on Russian-speaking people in his community in Chicago. [Aleksandra Sokolova, RFE/RL, August 27, 2025.]

When he refused, he was beaten and threatened with criminal charges. He later said they told him it would be easy to produce witnesses who would “say whatever is needed” against him.

By the end of the day, he had been charged with participating in a terrorist organization, undergoing terrorism training, and taking part in an illegal armed formation — commonly-used accusations in the predominantly Muslim region since the time of the two Chechen wars at the turn of the century. [Id.]

Now on trial in a military court in Rostov-on-Don, Timur has been accused of fighting in Syria against the Russian-backed former government of Bashar al-Assad. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Authorities say they have three witnesses against him, whose identities have not been revealed; but they have presented no additional evidence against him. [Id.]

Acquittals in such cases are almost unheard-of in Russia. As with others we have seen, it is likely just a question of how long his sentence will be, and where it will be served.

And so we add Timur to our list of American political hostages in Putin’s prisons and penal colonies.

As a naturalized U.S. citizen, he is, of course, entitled to the same protections and the same efforts to secure his release as any other American citizen. But in view of his ethnicity, and in light of the Trump administration’s onerous new immigration policies, Timur’s case must be monitored carefully to ensure that he receives those protections.

*. *. *

And here again is our roll call of known hostages:

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
Timur Kishukov
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