The rules of Crimean Tatar hospitality decree that a host serve a guest coffee, then tea, while discussing the news. Abdureshit Dzheparov is too steeped in the ways of his people to do otherwise, though his cup sat untouched, the steam drifting away in the cold air, as he described the evening of September 27, when he last saw his son.

“A friend of mine had come by. He was on his way to Sudak. We sat down for coffee like we are now. My son was here; my son made us coffee. And then afterwards he looked in and asked if he was needed. If not, he would go see his cousins,” Dzheparov said, his voice flat and face drawn. He had barely slept in days.

Dzheparov's son Islam, 18, went to check up on his widowed aunt and her children, who also live in the settlement of Sary-Su, on the edge of the town of Belogorsk, less than an hour's drive east of Simferopol, Crimea. Islam went most evenings, Dzheparov said. Sometimes, as on this occasion, his 23-year-old cousin Dzhevdet came along for company.

“At seven that evening, around seven, a car came along and beeped and I was like, 'Why don’t they come in?' I went out and there were two young lads in the car, and one said, 'Your son, I saw him, he was kidnapped, he was thrown in a van and taken away.'"

Dzhevdet was gone too. The young witnesses said three men wearing masks had bundled them into the back of a blue Volkswagen Transporter with tinted windows. Neither of them has been seen or heard of since.