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Today, a verdict against Vadim Krasikov, a citizen of Russia, found guilty of murdering Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, came into force. A court in Berlin stressed that an order for the murder had come “from the state bodies of Russia.” According to the Zelimkhan Khangoshvili’s family and members of the Chechen Diaspora abroad, critics of the authorities from among the Chechen migrants still face danger.

During the week of December 20-26, 2021, no killed or wounded in the ongoing armed conflict in Northern Caucasus were reported. These are the results of the calculations run by the “Caucasian Knot” based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

Kairbek Bakiev and Ilkhan Kanmurzaev, natives of the Stavropol Territory, have been detained on suspicion of taking part in the attack of Basaev's and Khattab's grouping on Dagestan in 1999, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has reported.

The situation with torture of detainees in Kuban (the Krasnodar Territory is named in this way by the name of the main river) stands out among other Russian regions; this practice has become systemic there, human rights defenders have stated in their comments on the pre-mortal statement of Evgeny Ipatov, a Sochi resident, about his torture at a law enforcement structure.

Mansur Sadulaev, the founder of the "Vayfond" Association that is in opposition to Kadyrov, has stated that during the last year he significantly reduced his activeness in social networks, but Chechen law enforcers have still kidnapped his maternal relatives.

Aslan Artsuev, the director of the organization "Human Rights Centre Ichkeria", has stated that Chechen authorities are trying to exert pressure on him by kidnapping four relatives, but this won't affect his political position and actions.

On December 24, central Tbilisi hosted a march demanding to release until the trial all those arrested within the case of beating up journalists at a protest against the gay parade.

Today, a mother and a sister of a Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov’s wife have been kidnapped in Astrakhan, and three of earlier kidnapped relatives are also being held hostage in Chechnya, the blogger reports.

On the fourth day of their hunger strike in a SIZO (pre-trial prison), brothers Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev look exhausted, but they intend to continue their protest against the court’s refusal to send their case to a court outside Chechnya, employees of the “SK SOS” Crisis Group report.

The refusal to interrogate within the "Memorial"* case those who founded this organization and is working therein, as well as the witnesses from Northern Caucasus declared by the defence, indicates the court's unwillingness to impartially delve into the essence of the case, human rights defenders have commented on the outcomes of the next court session.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a Chechen blogger, had asked journalists to ask Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at his annual press conference held on December 23, about kidnappings of relatives, but this issue was not raised there.

Kidnapping of relatives of blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov and other critics of the Chechen authorities was committed against the background of the trials against the “Memorials”* NGOs, when the main attention of Russian and foreign human rights defenders is focused on those trials and somewhat distracted from Chechnya, human rights defenders note. They call the kidnapping of relatives a historically alien practice in the Caucasus.