“Employees of the Turkmen special service check phones and interrogate citizens who return to the country or have been deported from other countries”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
As part of these measures, according to interlocutors of the publication, employees of the Turkmen special service check phones and interrogate citizens who return to the country or have been deported from other countries, in particular from Europe.
As a result of the inspection, seven people were found who made voluntary donations to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one of the sources said. According to him, these are citizens of Turkmenistan who left Ukraine for the EU after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, but then decided to return home.
MNB employees allegedly intimidated these citizens and threatened criminal prosecution under the article on recruiting, training or financing a mercenary. The security forces demanded a bribe of five thousand euros from at least two people.
According to the sources, the special service is also trying to identify citizens of Turkmenistan who live abroad and provide financial assistance to the Ukrainian military. The MNB is mostly interested in Turkmen migrants living in Eastern Europe, including in Romania or Poland. In particular, former military personnel are deprived of their biometric passports and ordered not to participate in the war in Ukraine.
The authorities of Turkmenistan have not officially reported the number of citizens of the country fighting in Ukraine. In May 2025, the Ukrainian state project “I want to live” published the names of at least 170 citizens of Turkmenistan, who are said to be fighting on the side of the Russian army. In August 2025, the project reported that Russia had recruited at least 122 citizens of Turkmenistan to participate in the war against Ukraine.
Last week, a video appeared on the YouTube channel of the Ukrainian Luhansk border detachment, in which, as it is claimed, a citizen of Turkmenistan surrendered. Answering the military’s questions, a man in a military uniform says that his name is Maksat Meredov. From the documents shown in the video, it follows that the man was born in the Mari region of Turkmenistan, and signed the contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense on November 14, 2025.