Timur Turkov. Photo: Uralskaya Nedelya
An appellate court in western Kazakhstan has overturned a lower court’s order to deport 17-year-old Russian citizen Timur Turkov, who crossed the Kazakh border on foot in September to avoid military conscription, RFE/RL reported on Thursday.
In its ruling, the court found that although Turkov was guilty of crossing the Kazakh border illegally, he could not be deported from the country as Kazakh law does not allow for the deportation of minors.
Turkov’s grandmother and legal guardian, Valentina Turkova, who travelled from Russia to attend the hearing, told the judge that her grandson’s life would be in danger if he was deported from Kazakhstan.
Turkov fled on foot across Russia’s border with Kazakhstan on 12 September, subsequently presenting himself to Kazakh border officials in the city of Oral. Originally from Russia’s Arctic Komi republic and aged 16 at the time, Turkov said that he wanted to claim asylum in Kazakhstan due to the “militarisation of schools” in Russia and his fear of being conscripted and sent to fight in Ukraine upon turning 18.
Minors cannot enter Kazakhstan without the consent of both legal guardians. Turkov was thus left with no choice but to cross the border illegally, as neither of his grandparents supported his decision to emigrate.
On 12 December, a juvenile court in Oral found Turkov guilty of violating Kazakhstan’s migration law, fined him, banned him from entering the country for five years and ordered he be deported back to Russia. That deportation order has now been cancelled.
Tamara Eslyamova, editor-in-chief of a regional newspaper in Oral, noted on Facebook that a representative of the Russian consulate “fought hard” at the hearing to have Turkov returned to Russia, and also attempted to have Turkov’s lawyer, Aigul Orynbekova, removed from the case.
The ruling comes amid warning signs that the Kazakh government is preparing for a mass deportation of anti-war Russians, tens of thousands of whom have fled to Kazakhstan and acquired forged residence permits due to the lack of a pathway to claim asylum.
In recent months, officials in Astana have demonstrated a growing willingness to cooperate with the Kremlin in deporting or extraditing Russian citizens wanted for various crimes in Russia, often on politically motivated grounds.
