Rozhanskaya spent several days at the Ukrainian embassy in Kazakhstan after her release before she was able to leave the country, her lawyer Alexei Pryanishnikov told the outlet Vot Tak. No preventive measure was ever imposed on her, he said. "The Kazakh side did everything according to the law," the defense lawyer added.
Rozhanskaya was detained at Astana airport on a request from Russia submitted through the Collective Security Treaty Organization. She had flown in from Istanbul to collect her grandson, who according to the defense was to be brought from Russia.
Russia's extradition request for the Ukrainian woman was not withdrawn, Pryanishnikov told DW.
The lawyer described the events as a provocation by the Federal Security Service (FSB). In Russia, a case was opened against Rozhanskaya over an attempted child abduction of which, according to the defense, she was unaware — this emerged only from the materials of the extradition case in Kazakhstan. In 2025, another case was opened against her — over organizing illegal migration.
According to Pryanishnikov, the documents for Rozhanskaya's international wanted listing and her subsequent handover were being prepared at the same time as discussions about transferring the child. In the summer of 2026, the family of her daughter's new husband contacted her and proposed handing the boy over to his father. The defense lawyer insists the offer to take the grandson could have been part of an operation by Russian special services.
Until 2021, Rozhanskaya's grandson lived with his mother in Odesa, after which the woman took her son to the Kaliningrad region. After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she filed a statement renouncing Ukrainian citizenship — her own and the child's. In 2022, they received Russian passports. In 2025, Ukraine's Supreme Court, acting on a suit by the father, ruled that the child should live in Odesa.
In 2023, two Ukrainians authorized by Rozhanskaya traveled to the Kaliningrad region to collect her grandson. Both were detained and in October 2025 were sentenced to 15 and 16 years in a strict-regime colony on charges of illegally crossing the Russian border, espionage and attempted abduction.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry and ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets had sought Rozhanskaya's release. Ukraine's ambassador to Kazakhstan, Viktor Maiko, stressed that she was acting within the law as someone officially authorized by the child's mother.