On the morning of November 19, 2024, US citizen Timur Kishukov was to fly back to his home near Chicago, where the truck driver had started his own logistics company earlier in the year, after a visit to his native region of Kabardino-Balkaria, in Russias North Caucasus.

He didnt make it to the airport. On the eve of his flight out, the father of four was detained by Federal Security Service (FSB) officers who bound his wrists with tape, covered his head and face with a jacket, and drove him away without saying where they were taking him, a person close to Kishukovs familytold RFE/RL.

Kishukov was brought to a basement room where he was questioned for over three hours about his stance on Russias war in Ukraine and about Russians who have worked for US intelligence -- including a purported former CIA informant who was fatally injured by apipe bomb blastin New Jersey in 1985.

The officers proposed that Kishukov work with Russian intelligence, providing information about people in his Russian-speaking community in the United States and what the officers suggested were ties between its members and the CIA, the person close to the family said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

Threatened By Criminal Charges

When he refused, they began to beat him and threatened to hit him with criminal charges, saying it would be easy to find witnesses who would say whatever is needed, Kishukov said at an initial custody hearing in November 2024, according to the source.

By midnight, the authorities had launched a formal investigation, and the regional branch of the FSB charged Kishukov with participation in a terrorist group, undergoing terrorism training, and participation in an illegal armed formation -- charges often pressed against suspects in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus, where two wars in the Chechnya region in the 1990s-2000s spawned an Islamist insurgency.

Timur Kishukov with his children

A source close to Kishukovs family said that Russian authorities reported that they looked into his complaint of ill-treatment in custody but found no wrongdoing by law enforcement.

Kishukov was sent to pretrial detention in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, where a source close to him told RFE/RL he was put in in a cold, isolated single-person cell in December 2024, January, and February, with jailers responding to complaints by saying he was being held there because there was no other free space in the detention center.

Accused Of Fighting In Syria

Kishukov, who denies the charges, is now on trial at a military court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. He could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if convicted of participation in a terrorist group.

Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons told RFE/RL that Kishukov is accused of fighting in Syria, against the Russian-backed former government of Bashar al-Assad, alongside insurgents from the North Caucasus. The sources said the authorities have three witnesses, whose identity is being kept secret, who claim they remember Kishukov from Syria.

A separate source who is familiar with the case and also spoke on condition of anonymity told RFE/RL that the Russian authorities have presented no other evidence supporting the charges. In the early stages of Kishukovs prosecution, a defense lawyer argued that there was no evidence to support the allegations against him. Supporters say he and his family were in Turkey during the time his accusers claim he was in Syria.

Timur Kishukov in an enclosure in a Russian courtroom

Acquittals are extremely rare in Russia, and a source with knowledge of the case voiced concern that there was little chance Kishukov would escape conviction.

Kishukov, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois, became a US citizen in 2017. He was in the United States as early as 2012, according to information from the Illinois secretary of states office.

He is one of several US citizens who remain behind bars in Russia following a series of prisoner swaps over the past few years. The United States has referred to some Americans jailed in Russia as hostages.

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Ksenia Karelina, who was imprisoned in Russia for donating $51 to a US-based Ukrainian aid charity, was freed by Russia in April in exchange for Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen who allegedly exported sensitive microelectronics.

In February, the United States released confessed Russian cybercriminal Aleksandr Vinnik in exchange for the American teacher Marc Fogel.

In August 2024, Russia freed 16 people, including RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Eight Russians were returned home in thelargest prisoner swapsince the end of the Cold War.

Responding to questions from RFE/RL, a US State Department spokesperson said the United States is aware that Kishukov is detained in Russia and that it is providing consular support. The spokesperson declined to comment further, citing privacy and other considerations.

RFE/RL North America Correspondent Todd Prince contributed to this report from Washington.