News

Martin Kochesoko*, an activist from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), who had moved to Europe, has treated his criminal prosecution in Russia for evading the duties of a foreign agent as unjustified.

The Supreme Court (SC) of Dagestan has refused to commute the sentences passed to five law enforcers who figured in the case of kidnapping and torture, and replaced the conditional imprisonment of one of the convicts for real one.

The Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar has arrested for days Marina Nasonova, a violinist of the Kuban Symphony Orchestra, for a phrase in support of Ukraine she has posted in the messenger.

Maria Smelaya, a resident of Krasnodar, has complained that officials from the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) are passing her complaint about her husband's kidnapping of their common son to each other and would not investigate the case.

The sentence to Alexander Nozdrinov, a journalist and blogger from the Krasnodar Territory, sentenced to 8.5 of freedom deprivation within the case of fakes about the Russian Army, has been upheld.

The Volgograd Court of Appeal (CoA) has upheld the court ruling that found the search conducted at the apartment of Vyacheslav Yaschenko, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, as legitimate. The CoA has rejected the defence's arguments.

In Astrakhan, law enforcers blocked the exits from the Red Mosque and checked believers' documents; some Muslims were put into buses, believers have reported.

The Church Court of the Ekaterinodar and Kuban Diocese has banned Archpriest Andrei Drugai from priestly service; Andrei left his parish due to disagreement with the position of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) on the issue of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

The court of appeal upheld the sentence of Marina Melikhova, a resident of Krasnodar, convicted under the article on discrediting of the Russian Armed Forces. The activist claimed that she was subjected to political persecution for her pacifist position and criticism of the country’s authorities.

Vitaly Zhuravlyov from the Akhtubinsky District became a suspect in a criminal case on discrediting of the Russian Armed Forces.

A court sentenced Garegin Khachaturyan, Gevorg Yeritsyan, and Lyubov Galitsyna, Jehovah’s Witnesses* from Novocherkassk, to various terms of imprisonment, finding them guilty of extremism.

If Chechen authorities introduce a rule that the entire clan should respond for a militant's actions, the republic will be overwhelmed by a wave of blood feud declarations. Ramzan Kadyrov's words contradict the Sharia Law and Adats; and his very behaviour is dictated by the anxiety after the militants' attacks committed in the neighbouring Dagestan, experts on the Caucasus have suggested.

Within 1.5 days, the petition demanding to take control over the inquiry into the murder of Seda Suleimanova, a native of Chechnya, was signed by 630 people.

Askhabali Alibekov, a native of Dagestan, accused of using violence against a law enforcer, has stated that he is deprived of telephone conversations with his relatives, and his letters were not sent. He has asked to consider his case in a special manner, explaining that he wants to return to his family.

The Shali City Court has for the second time dismissed a request for the conditional early relief of Zarema Musaeva. The court justified its refusal by the fact that the woman had not compensated for damages in the case on fraud and was placed on preventive registration in a penal colony.

The official Kremlin has no doubt about Ramzan Kadyrov’s statements concerning tough methods of fighting militants and those who support them, announces Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov.

Parents of the teenagers detained in Novosibirsk for setting fire to relay cabinets, a cell phone station, and an SU-24 aircraft believe that the case has been falsified. Investigators instituted similar cases in Southern Russia, although the cases contain signs of provocations from law enforcers, and the person who ordered the crimes remains unidentified, a lawyer notes.

Amid the militants' attacks committed in Dagestan, the head of Chechnya has called for a "hard response" to attacks on law enforcers, by killing all the perpetrators' blood relatives.

Soslan Dzidakhanov disagrees with the amount of compensation for his suffered moral harm that the Ardonsky Court awarded him for being beaten up by a law enforcer. In the Russian judicial practice, it is customary to decrease the compensation amount; and the resonance from Tskaev's case has partially contributed to a decrease in the number of tortures in the republic, Vladimir Tskaev's widow and his advocate have stressed.

Fundraising for the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation is carried out mainly in Russia and mainly in cash, so sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) are not able to significantly affect the activities of the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, analysts note.