“I’m sorry I’ve left you on your own Mum”: 18 year old Kevin Lik is sentenced to treason
In January 2023, Kevin Lik became the youngest person to be convicted of treason by a Russian court.
Born in Germany, Kevin is the son of a Russian mother and a Russo-German father. A German citizen and speaker, he did not learn Russian until he relocated to the Republic of Adygea with his mother. When she made the decision to return to Germany, he was required to seek a military exemption as a condition for exiting the country having received Russian citizenship at the age of 10.
Having submitted the relevant documentation, his mother Veronika was recalled to the office the next day. There after waiting for hours, she was accused of using “obscene language” in public and was arrested upon leaving the building and taken to the Maykop City Court where she spent 10 days in administrative arrest. According to lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov, who works with prisoners’ rights group First Department, this a common practice by the FSB to prevent people from leaving the country. After her release, Veronika and Kevin eventually traveled to Sochi to fly to Frankfurt. However, they were stopped and Kevin was arrested there for treason, despite being only 16 years-old, by FSB officers and taken back to Maykop.
Intially Kevin was held in a holding center in Krasnodar. When he turned 18, he was transferred to an adult pre-trial detention center in the nearby town of Tlyustenkhabl. According to his mother, the conditions in the center were horrible. He experienced violence and abuse, was unable received letters or make calls. Veronika was only allowed to visit twice a month. Despite this, Kevin did not want to make a complaint about the violence he had to endure fearing retaliation.
On the 28th of December 2023, the Adygea Supreme Court handed down Kevin’s sentence. According to the press report from the Adygea Supreme Court services, Kevin was accused of photographing troop “deployment sites” in Maykop, and emailing them to “representatives of foreign state” between 23 December 2021 and 8 February 2023. The FSB alleges that Kevin's actions constitute treason, driven by his “disagreement with Russia's political course” and the “special military operation in Ukraine”. Apart from this information, the details of the charges are unknown as the files are classified and the hearing held behind closed doors. He was sentenced to four years in total.
Critics have raised questions about the nature of the information Kevin could have provided, given that addresses and photographs of military units in Maykop are publicly available on the Internet.
Despite the severity of the charge, his sentence was reduced due to his active assistance in the investigation and his confession of guilt and sincere remorse. Kevin has filed an appeal against the verdict but remains in pre-trial detention pending the appeal hearing. His mother was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement preventing her from discussing her son’s case.
As Kevin Lik becomes the youngest person to be convicted of treason in Russia, the circumstances surrounding his arrest and the handling of his case raise concerns about human rights and how Russia weaponizes accusations of treason or espionage since February 2022 to prevent Russians leaving the country.