Russian anti-war activist Ariadna Litvinova was deported from Turkey. On arrival in Russia, she was immediately detained on charges of ‘discrediting’ the army.

On July 4, Turkey deported Russian activist Ariadna Litvinova, who faces criminal charges in Russia for “discrediting” the army. The grounds for deportation were that Litvinova lacked the documents required to remain in the country. After she returned to Russia, a court ordered her remanded in custody. BBC Russia spoke with the activist’s father, who lives in Turkey. He said that in May of this year he and his daughter got into an altercation, which led to police being called. He is nonetheless convinced that Litvinova’s deportation was only a matter of time. Meduza recaps the key points of that report.

Ariadna Litvinova’s parents divorced when she was five. Her mother opposed any continued contact between her daughter and her father and later remarried. An acquaintance of Litvinova who spoke with BBC Russia said her relationship with her mother and stepfather was difficult, and the two had barely been in touch for the last five years.

Litvinova’s father, Valery Kryzhanovsky, moved to Turkey in 2011 and married a local woman. He said he resumed contact with his daughter in the mid-2010s after finding her on VK.

After ninth grade, Litvinova enrolled in a police college but dropped out in 2023. The exact reason is not known. Kryzhanovsky says her mother did not have enough money to pay for her continued studies.

Litvinova herself offered no specific explanation. “The last year of school was extremely difficult in terms of my psychological state, my mental health, and my physical health. Now is not the time to go back,” she wrote on Instagram.

Litvinova then spent about a year in Thailand before returning to Russia. Her father says it was he who persuaded her to get a passport.

In the early hours of February 24, 2025 — the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — Litvinova was detained in St. Petersburg. She was reported to have written “Murderers. Peace to Ukraine. Freedom to political prisoners” on 10 display boards at a pro-war photo exhibition called Vmeste k Pobede (“Together Toward Victory”).

Litvinova was issued an administrative citation and had a criminal case opened against her on vandalism charges — even though the law prohibits punishing a person twice for the same act. In March she was released from custody and the restraining measure was replaced with a prohibition on certain activities.

Immediately afterward, Valery Kryzhanovsky invited his daughter to come live with him. He had lost his home in the south of the country after a powerful earthquake in February 2023, and the authorities had given his family a new three-room apartment. Litvinova moved in with her father in August 2025. The relationship was strained from the start, Kryzhanovsky said:

Kryzhanovsky says his daughter could not legally find work because she had no residence permit. Obtaining one required having her documents apostilled in Russia, and in general, according to her father, she did not attach much importance to it. “It was as if she didn’t care,” Kryzhanovsky said. “She just stayed silent, ignored us, that was it.”

At some point, Kryzhanovsky says, he tried through acquaintances to arrange a marriage for his daughter: “There’s a fairly wealthy man, a good one, Kurdish. He has an apartment in Istanbul, a car. She would have ended up with dual citizenship, like me. She wouldn’t hear of it.”

Over time, Litvinova stopped communicating with her father and his wife altogether and would not let them into her room. Acquaintances advised Kryzhanovsky to send his daughter back to Russia, where it would be easier for her to build a life, he says — but he was afraid she would be sent to prison.

BBC Russia says that by the end of 2025, the charges against Litvinova had been reclassified under the article on public actions aimed at discrediting the Russian military. Kryzhanovsky says he was aware of the new charge. After that, Litvinova was placed on a wanted list.

According to her father, Litvinova wanted to move to a European Union country but had no visa, and Kryzhanovsky had no money to pay for the trip. He had not been working recently, and his wife lives on a pension. Money is a recurring pressure point in his account.

In May, a quarrel between father and daughter escalated into a physical fight. Kryzhanovsky says he raised his hand at his daughter and she lunged at him and began choking him. In a comment to BBC Russia, Litvinova’s younger sister said that according to Ariadna, her father had beaten her.

The incident caused Kryzhanovsky’s wife to have a nervous breakdown, and she called the police with her husband’s approval. Litvinova immediately packed her things, having no intention of returning to her father’s home. At the police station, Kryzhanovsky declined to file a complaint against his daughter, and he and his wife were released after being questioned. He says he has had no contact with Litvinova since.

Two weeks later, his wife found out that Ariadna was in a deportation center. Kryzhanovsky believes it was only a matter of time: she had been staying in Turkey illegally, and any document check could have led to her expulsion. He had not kept track of what happened to his daughter and learned of her detention from the news.

“I didn’t know she was on a wanted list,” Kryzhanovsky said. He had previously stated that he was aware of the new charge related to “discrediting” the military. “I haven’t been to Russia in a long time. The laws there have changed a lot,” he added.

Human rights activists who spoke with BBC Russia journalists are convinced that Turkey violated international law by sending Ariadna Litvinova to a country where her life and freedom are at risk. At the same time, the sources told the outlet, she could have been saved from deportation if Kryzhanovsky had notified organizations that help Russians with anti-war views who are abroad.