What Kind of State Kidnaps Someone, Tortures Them Into Confessing, Gags the Press and then Imprisons His Lawyer? Step Forward Israel
Artyom Kirpichonok in Happier Times in St Petersburg
At 10:50 am on August 2, 2026, Russian-Israeli historian and Orientalist Artyom Kirpichonok arrived at Ben-Gurion airport. Kirpichonok had flown from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Just minutes before, at 10:41 am, he managed to send a brief message to his relatives: “Landed.” Dr Kirpichonok, a dual Israeli-Russian citizen was not to know that he would never make it out of the airport.
Is Israel Cracking Down? The Arrest of Kirpichonok | Alexander Kolpakidi and Mikhail Magid
Israel’s secret police, the Shabak were lying in wait. Within moments, his phone was forcibly disconnected, and all communication ceased. According to law enforcement data, he successfully cleared border control at 2:00 PM, but the scientist never reached the rented apartment in Ashkelon left behind after his parents passed away.
To all intents and purpose Kirpichonok had been disappeared. Despite its façade as a democratic state, Israel has past form when it comes to disappearing people for long stretches as a time.
After disappearing from public contact on August 2, 2026, Dr. Artyom Kirpichenok (Kirpichonok), a 51-year-old prominent anti-Zionist critic, was held incommunicado under a strict judicial gag order. On September 4, 2026, he was formally indicted on security charges, including espionage and contacting an agent of a foreign intelligence service. Prosecutors allege that he undertook clandestine influence operations against Israel under instructions from foreign intelligence, specifically pointing to multiple trips he made to Iran. His legal defense and family contend that his arrest is a case of political persecution, noting that he had no access to classified state secrets.
Israel has a long-documented history of employing media blackouts, court-enforced gag orders, and anonymous detention—often referred to as the “Prisoner X“ system—to secretly incarcerate citizens or intelligence assets suspected of treason or espionage.
Dr Kirpichenok is not the only Israeli to have been disappeared but unlike the others he is clearly innocent of the charges. The only motive for his arrest and disappearance is political. Others include:
A general view of the Ayalon Prison in the city of Ramla, central Israel, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo by Yossi Aloni/Flash90.
Ben Zygier: A dual Australian-Israeli national who worked for Mossad, Israel’s MI6. In early 2010, Zygier was secretly arrested and held in absolute isolation under a false identity in Ayalon Prison. Even his prison guards were entirely unaware of his true identity. The government enforced a total media blackout regarding his existence. He died by suicide in December 2010 while still in solitary confinement. His imprisonment and identity remained completely hidden from the public until an Australian broadcaster exposed the story in early 2013.
Rumours of the potential existence of a prisoner who was held in Israel for unspecified crimes at Ayalon Prison, a maximum-security prison in Ramla, first surfaced when an Israeli news website (Ynet) briefly posted an article about him in 2010. The article was taken down within hours, and was allegedly removed because the Israeli security services had a gag order imposed. These reports claimed that the man was confined in total seclusion and was being housed in the cell that was built for Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin.
“Prisoner X2“: Following the exposure of Ben Zygier’s death, Israeli officials acknowledged the existence of a second anonymous detainee. “Prisoner X2” was a senior Mossad operative who was secretly jailed in Ayalon Prison around 2004 under total secrecy. He was convicted of severe treason and espionage on behalf of Iran. His existence was kept a state secret for nearly a decade until it leaked in July 2013. Reports indicate he was quietly released from custody in May 2018
Marcus Klingberg
Marcus Klingberg: A Polish-born Israeli epidemiologist and deputy director of the top-secret Israel Institute for Biological Research. In 1983, Klingberg ‘disappeared’ entirely from public view after being arrested by the Shin Bet for spying for the Soviet Union. For a decade, the Israeli government enforced a blanket gag order on the case. His family was compelled to tell acquaintances he was receiving medical treatment in Europe. His secret 20-year prison sentence was not publicly disclosed until a legal leak occurred in 1993.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel sent a letter to the Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, protesting the conditions of this man’s detention. The chief legal counsel for the Association, Dan Yakir, wrote:
It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place.
Kirpichenok’s book – Why Did the Counter-Revolution Win in Russia? The Right Wing Against the Truth,
Weinstein’s deputy replied that
The current gag order is vital for preventing a serious breach of the state’s security, so we can not elaborate about this affair
Russian writer Artem Kirpichenok arrested in Israel
For his colleagues, this disappearance came as a stunning shock. By concealing his arrest under the shroud of a judicial gag order, the Zionist regime counted on complete silence.
Kirpichenok book St. Petersburg. Walks with a Breeze. A Guidebook for Scooters and Bicycles
Kirpichenok was born and brought up in St Petersburg. He was taken by his mother to Israel in 1991, when the USSR collapsed. He wrote articles for Russian and Turkish media and was active in anti-Zionist meetings.
It appears that he was enticed to come to Israel by the Shabak; though he frequently visited Israel, where he had a flat and many friends. In Israel, they have no habeas corpus. The secret service can keep its prisoners for years without trial and even without specific charges. There are thousands of prisoners without charges, most Palestinian, but Jews too can be imprisoned without trial or charges.
Kirpichenok’s last published column in TRT was We are proud of being hated, the previous one being The Arab citizens of Israel from Ghetto to Apartheid. His most popular book is The People’s History of Israel.
One of Artem Kirpichenok eight books – Notes of a Man from Atlantis,
Kirpichonok is a recognized researcher of Zionism and the history of the Middle East. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, defended his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Frankel, and in recent years lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, heading the Slavic Studies Department at the Center for Arab-Eurasian Studies. He worked as a tour guide and wrote analytical columns for major publications. His books became the primary target of Zionist hatred.
A People’s History of Israel
In “A People’s History of Israel”, Kirpichenok argued that the victims of Zionism are not only Palestinians but also the Jewish communities of repatriants themselves. This book, named by analogy with the works of Howard Zinn, became his most popular and accurate study, exposing a profound internal rift within Israeli society.
Statement by Sergey Baburin
In a special statement by the International Association of Peace Foundations, Sergey Baburin, former Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, emphasized the strictly scientific and historically accurate nature of Kirpichonok’s anti-Zionist stance.
Daria Barabanova’s Appeal to Russia’s Ambassador to Israel – the Translation is here
Concurrently, Daria Barabanova, an actress, choreographer, ballet master, and director from St. Petersburg, pointed out the complete vulnerability of the lonely researcher in an appeal to the Russian Ambassador to Israel.
Past trips made by Kirpichenok to Iran served as an additional pretext for persecution. In a talk on the lecture platform “Book Center × Delib”, analyst Mikhail Magid confirmed that friends repeatedly tried to dissuade him from the fateful trip, understanding the vengefulness of the Israeli authorities. However, Shin Bet lured the financially struggling scientist into a trap by sending a fake invitation to a fictional conference with the promise of a grant.
Daria Mitina, a former deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, was the first to announce Kirpichonok’s arrest and his incarceration in the dungeons of Shin Bet, breaking the information blockade in the early days of August.
In a special report by the Latin American television network teleSUR, journalist Oleg Yasinsky brought the affair to an international level, calling Kirpichonok a defender of the rights of the Palestinian people and emphasizing his significant contribution to the education of Jewish communities. Following them, in CounterPunch magazine, artist, writer, and founder of the David Graeber Institute Nika Dubrovsky published an essay titled “They Are Coming for the Penguins”, referencing a famous poem by the early 20th-century Russian Soviet writer Maxim Gorky.
Dubrovsky explained that Kirpichonok is a peaceful, defenseless “penguin” hiding his body in the cliffs, who did not belong to any radical organisations. His arrest is a demonstrative example aimed at eliminating any safe “zones of anomaly” and forcing the intelligentsia into silence. In a world where the water in public discourse is rapidly boiling, Shin Bet demonstrates that from now on, the space of the personal and the prison cell merge into a single reality.
As Magid noted in an interview with the socio-political channel “Krasnye Dyadki”, Netanyahu’s regime carried out a purge of the security services on the eve of the elections, appointing radicals who required an “internal enemy.” In another piece in CounterPunch, Vijay Prashad, Director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, supplemented the picture with frightening statistics of repression: Shin Bet arrested more than 1,400 citizens for anti-war publications on social media.
Although there are still a few fools who believe that Israel is a parliamentary democracy and the embodiment of what it means to be Jewish, what happened next was confirmation that Israel belongs to that group of states where the security services can act with impunity.
Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz
Israeli lawyer Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz remained Kirpichonok’s sole defender. She was denied access to her client for 20 days while he was being broken in the Petah Tikva detention center. At their first meeting, a Kafkaesque underbelly of the investigation came to light, which Yaakov Rabkin, a professor at the University of Jerusalem, characterised in an interview with the Swiss channel Neutrality Studies as an absolute absurdity: his lawyer was forbidden to bring with her even a blank sheet of paper and was forced to memorise all statements by ear through bulletproof glass.
Artem Kirpichenok
It is known from investigative materials in Anhar Kochneva’s military blog on Yandex.Zen that Kirpichonok was subjected to sleep deprivation torture, being interrogated continuously for 18–24 hours a day. The historian, whose vision is minus 11 dioptres, was kept in shackles on an iron chair under the blinding light of lamps for days on end. In an interview with the socio-political portal “Rabkor”, Magid emphasised that under conditions of brain function deterioration from multi-day sleep deprivation, Kirpichonok was forced to sign self-incrimination protocols.
Only international pressure from the Russian Presidential Council for Human Rights, which sent an appeal to the UN, forced the censorship to back down. Citing this move, Israeli journalist Itamar Eichner published an investigation in Ynet that tore away the veil of secrecy. Richard Silverstein pointed out in his blog Tikun Olam that Shin Bet is using the historian as a geopolitical hostage in the confrontation surrounding Iran.
On September 4, the State Attorney’s Office filed charges of “espionage for Russia” against Kirpichonok in Lod District Court. On October 1 Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz gave a detailed video interview to the RT Arabic television channel. She openly called the prosecution’s accusations “Scheherazade’s tales”—a fantastic fiction completely devoid of real documents and built on self-incrimination extracted under torture. As Daria Mitina and Anhar Kochneva noted earlier, investigators applied unacceptable methods of pressure to her client, depriving him of sleep and threatening him with a life sentence.
Inna Leybedinskaya-Katz was also arrested – Israel’s justice system is quite unique for a self-declared democracy
The retaliation of the Iscoraeli state followed immediately: Shin Bet arrested the lawyer for defending her client. Lebedinskaya-Katz was thrown in gaol, depriving Kirpichonok of legal assistance. To arrest the lawyer demonstrated, as if it needs demonstrating, that Israel’s judicial processes are a charade. When they choose, the State and its secret police simply do what they want with the judiciary giving a rubber stamp of approval.
Kirpichonok is currently being held in a maximum-security block at Ayalon Prison. According to updates by Mikhail Magid, the researcher has completely lost sight in one eye due to the lack of medical care under conditions of torture. B’Tselem, Israel’s human rights organization, describes Israeli prisons as a network of torture camps.
Letter from the State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel rejecting ACRI’s complaint (Case No. 1254441), declaring a lack of jurisdiction over judicial matters.
The Office of the State Comptroller and Ombudsman, in response to a complaint from relatives under number № 1254441, stated its refusal to interfere in the affairs of the judicial system.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) cited procedural limitations in its response. The sole international legal shield has been the decision by the Scholars at Risk network to include Artyom’s case in its global Academic Freedom Monitoring Project.
At the same time, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights registered a complaint filed by human rights defenders regarding the arrest of Kirpichonok and his lawyer under tracking number 1bblaq2e.
The world’s leading thinkers have joined the solidarity campaign. A joint open letter in defense of Kirpichonok has been signed by philosopher Judith Butler (USA), physicist and co-author of Noam Chomsky Jean Bricmont (Belgium), Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Professor Darko Suvin, Member of the Order of the British Empire Professor Tariq Modood, and Professor of Psychological Sciences Felicia Pratto.
The only force against the secret police is stubborn human memory. Kirpichonok and Inna’s personal Facebook profiles preserve the evidence of their public academic and legal work, while the website for the campaign to defend Artyom Kirpichonok and the coordination email address [email protected] remain available for anyone ready to visit and add their name to the Open Letter in Defense of the Historian.
The scientist and his lawyer must not vanish into the darkness of Israeli detention facilities.
You are Not Allowed to Criticise Israel. The Case of Artyom Kirpichenok Vijay Prashad
They are Coming for the Penguins: Artem Ivanovich Kirpichenok is in a Shin Bet Prison in Israel Nika Dubrovsky
BREAKING: Shin Bet Disappears Russian-Israeli Academic
Tony Greenstein
Dear Colleagues!
I am writing to you in connection with the critical situation that has developed around the arrest in Israel by the SHABAK special service of the scholar-historian Dr. Artyom Kirpichyonok and his lawyer Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz.
On August 2, 2026, Dr. Kirpichyonok arrived in Israel to participate in academic events and on personal matters. After passing border control at the Ben Gurion International Airport, he was detained by the Israel Security Agency SHABAK (Shin Bet) and placed in a detention facility.
For the first 3 weeks, the historian was held in complete isolation without access to a lawyer. According to available reports, Dr. Kirpichyonok was subjected to hours-long interrogations (lasting 18-24 hours a day), sleep deprivation, and intense psychological pressure, which forced him into self-incrimination. Currently, the State Attorney’s Office of Israel has filed an official indictment, incriminating him with “espionage” and “operating under the guidance of foreign intelligence” within a closed trial.
In an escalation of the situation, on October 12, at 8:00 AM, SHABAK agents arrested the lawyer of Dr. Kirpichyonok — Inna Leybedinskaya-Katz, criminalizing her professional activity under the pretext of “contact with a foreign factor”. On October 15, the court remanded her in custody and imposed a strict gag order (Tzav Issur Pirsum), completely banning domestic media coverage of her case.
Earlier, on September 24, the court extended the detention period of Dr. Kirpichyonok for another 2 months — until November 24, refusing to lift the judicial censorship despite demands from the defense and Israeli media. On October 8, the High Court of Justice (BAGATZ) also refused to lift the judicial ban from the historian’s case. He is currently being held in a solitary cell in Ayalon Prison under conditions that threaten his life. The Israel Prison Service (SHABAS) continues to unlawfully deny any meetings with the client.
Due to the refusal of medical care, the scholar’s glaucoma has rapidly progressed, as a result of which he has completely lost sight in one eye, and his leg was seriously injured due to the constant presence in shackles during interrogations. In addition, the Israeli authorities denied the Russian embassy consular access to him, using his dual citizenship as a pretext. Now that his lawyer is in prison, the scholar is left completely defenseless in absolute isolation.
Kirpichenok’s Book Israel: The Road to Catastrophe
There is every reason to believe that these accusations are directly related to his many years of public and academic activity, his research into the history of Zionism, and his critique of the Israeli government’s policies. His books, including “A People’s History of Israel” and “Israel: The Road to Catastrophe”, were based entirely on open sources and archival materials.
Reports on his persecution have already been published by World Socialist Web Site, the Rabkor.ru media resource, the Latin American television network teleSUR, the independent platform CounterPunch, and the Arabic service of the Russian television network RT.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights registers an appeal
The international human rights network Scholars at Risk has logged this case into its Academic Freedom Monitoring Project. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has registered an appeal concerning the cases of Dr. Kirpichenok and Advocate Inna Leybedinskaya-Katz under Reference Number: 1bblaq2e. Domestically, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has placed the situation under legal monitoring to evaluate potential intervention. Meanwhile, the Office of the State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel has rejected the complaint (Case No. 1254441 / MENTA:002110013847), declaring a total lack of jurisdiction over judicial matters.
I request you to familiarize yourselves with the detailed materials on the 8-language campaign website. On the website and via the links below, you can familiarize yourselves with the text and the list of those who have already signed the Open Letter in defense of Dr. Artyom Kirpichyonok.
To add your name to the list of signatories, please reply to this email or send your details (first name, last name, position/title, place of work, and country) to the following address: [email protected]
Constantly updated campaign website (in 8 languages): https://sites.google.com/view/artem-kirpichenok
To sign or familiarize oneself with the Open Letter and the complete list of signatories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/118zoysAj4yzzGpDO1wSuQhTB8Yr9bHY8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115079145443591172567&rtpof=true&sd=true
Every media mention or dissemination of this information in academic, journalistic, and professional circles is of vital importance and serves as a call for immediate action in connection with the blow to academic freedom and the right to legal defense in Israel, as well as the salvation of the health and life of the scholar and his lawyer. Only continuous international pressure is capable of breaking through this blockade and saving lives.
Public statements and signatures under the open letter in defense of the scientist have already been made by:
Judith Butler, philosopher and professor at the University of California,
Jean Bricmont, professor emeritus of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain, world-renowned essayist, and co-author of Noam Chomsky, Belgium;
Vijay Prashad, director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, India/USA;
Darko Suvin, professor emeritus at McGill University and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Canada;
Felicia Pratto, professor of psychological sciences at the University of Connecticut, Sergey Baburin, Doctor of Law and former Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, Russian Federation;
Anhar Kochneva, war correspondent, Lebanon;
Yakov Rabkin, professor emeritus of history, Canada;
Richard Silverstein, journalist and author of the Tikun Olam blog, USA;
Tony Greenstein, journalist, author, and co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, United Kingdom;
Itamar Eichner, international correspondent, Israel;
David Roediger, professor of African American Studies and American Studies at the University of Kansas, USA;
Robin D. G. Kelley, professor of history at the University of California;
Vinay Lal, professor of history at the University of California,
Nika Dubrovsky, artist, writer, and founder of the David Graeber Institute, UK);
Alex Tabarrok, Dr., director of the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University, USA;
Yevgenia Belorusets, artist and writer, Ukraine/Germany;
Federico Fuentes, editor of LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Australia; and others.
Sincerely,
Yevhen Terekhov, Ph.D.
