Kazakhstan detained Ukrainian citizen Liubov Rozhanska in Astana on 1 October at Russia’s request, after she traveled there to receive her grandson, a Ukrainian boy whose father has sought his return to Ukraine, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.
Russia accuses Rozhanska of attempting to abduct the child and is seeking her detention through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led security alliance that includes Kazakhstan.
She could now face deportation to Russia, despite never having entered the country, according to her lawyers cited by DW.
A Ukrainian child Russia wants to keep
The case involves a boy born in Odesa in 2018. His mother took him from Ukraine to Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast in 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion. In 2022, she and the child obtained Russian citizenship.
The boy’s Ukrainian father challenged the child’s residence in court. In March 2025, Ukraine’s Supreme Court ruled that the boy should live in Odesa with his father.
According to Rozhanska’s lawyer, Oleksii Pryanishnikov, the boy’s stepfather and step-grandfather contacted her in July 2026 about arranging the child’s transfer to his Ukrainian father and grandmother.
By August, a Kaliningrad court had issued a warrant to detain Rozhanska in connection with an alleged attempt to abduct the child. Russian investigators were also preparing documents to seek her extradition through the CSTO, according to documents cited by DW.
Rozhanska then traveled to Astana and was detained at the airport after arriving from Istanbul.
Kazakh lawyer Riza Nurbaeva told DW that Rozhanska did not know about the Russian criminal case and had never entered Russia. She said the Ukrainian was detained under the Kaliningrad court’s warrant.
Lawyer alleges political motive
Pryanishnikov described the detention as a “planned operation” by Russia’s Federal Security Service and alleged that it has a political dimension connected to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
His allegation comes in the context of Russia’s documented transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and efforts to assimilate them into Russian society, grant them Russian citizenship and sever their ties to Ukraine.
In this case, Russia is using international legal mechanisms to potentially prevent a Ukrainian child from returning to his father in Ukraine.
Rozhanska is currently being held in a Kazakh pretrial detention center. A court hearing is expected within three days, according to DW.
