In Kazakhstan, Ukrainian citizen Liubov Rozhanska has been detained at Russia’s request. According to Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, the woman travelled to Kazakhstan to collect her underage grandson, but ended up in custody in a case Russia opened back in 2023.
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said this.
According to him, Liubov Rozhanska contacted him after her detention in Kazakhstan. Lubinets said he immediately appealed to Kazakhstan’s Ombudsman Artur Lastaiev, urging him to prevent the extradition, handover or forced transfer of the Ukrainian woman to Russia. He also held a telephone conversation with the Kazakh ombudsman.
Lubinets claims Rozhanska was effectively lured to Kazakhstan by deception. According to him, the child’s “new” relatives in Russia, working in cooperation with the FSB, contacted her and tried to persuade her to leave Ukraine and collect her grandson herself.
The woman travelled to Astana without knowing that preparations for her detention were already under way in Russia. Now, the ombudsman says, Russia is seeking her extradition.
Lubinets stressed the need to verify the conditions under which the Ukrainian woman is being held and the legal grounds for depriving her of liberty. He also called for full access to her for Ukraine’s diplomatic and consular representatives and her lawyer.
Separately, the ombudsman drew attention to the situation involving Rozhanska’s underage grandson. According to available information, the boy’s mother took him to Russia back in 2021, and in 2022 obtained Russian citizenship for herself and the child.
At the same time, in March 2025 the Supreme Court of Ukraine determined that the child’s place of residence is Odesa.
According to Lubinets, the grandmother travelled to Kazakhstan to collect the Ukrainian child and bring him home, but she herself ended up in custody in a case initiated by Russia.
The ombudsman urged relatives of Ukrainian children who are in Russia or in temporarily occupied territories not to try to retrieve them on their own, but to contact Ukraine’s official state bodies.
“The Ombudsman’s Office facilitates the return of Ukrainian children from deportation, forced transfer, from foreign states, in cases where documents are missing and there are various legal aspects,” Lubinets noted.
The ombudsman also said that a video purportedly showing the boy boarding a plane to Kazakhstan was deliberately staged in order to lure the woman.
- Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told journalists that it is aware of the situation.
- “The Embassy of Ukraine in Kazakhstan immediately appealed to the Kazakh side with a request not to grant Russia’s extradition request,” the ministry said.
- It added that Ukrainian consuls requested permission to visit the citizen, who is currently being held in a pre-trial detention centre, and received preliminary consent.