Nikita Zhuravel

A resident of Volgograd. On 21 May 2023, he was detained and placed in custody the following day, accused by investigators of burning a copy of the Quran outside a mosque in Volgograd. In a video recorded after his arrest, Zhuravel stated that he had been contacted by “employees of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)” and, on their instructions had purchased a Quran and burned it. He then "sent the video footage to the SBU staff", who “were supposed to pay him 10,000 roubles.”.

The very next day, Zhuravel's case was transferred to the Investigative Committee of Chechnia for further investigation. The Investigative Committee explained the decision by citing “numerous requests from residents of the Chechen Republic asking to be recognised as victims.”

It was later revealed that on the video, which prompted the charges, Zhuravel was not burning the Quran itself, but rather "The Light of the Holy Quran" - a book containing the Quranic text along with the commentary, which has been classified as extremist material in Russia.

In August 2023, Zhuravel reported that he had been beaten in a Groznyi pre-trial detention centre by Adam Kadyrov, a 15-year-old son of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Ramzan Kadyrov later confirmed that his son had assaulted Zhuravel. Ramzan Kadyrov and other senior officials in Chechnya publicly expressed pride in the younger Kadyrov’s actions. On 12 October, Ramzan Kadyrov published a video on his Telegram channel showing a conversation with Zhuravel, during which the latter claimed he intended to convert to Islam. On 27 February 2024, Zhuravel was sentenced to three and a half years in a general regime colony. In October 2024, it was announced that Zhuravel had also been charged with high treason. According to the investigation, prior to burning the Quran, he had sent information about the movement of Russian military vehicles to Ukraine. On 25 November 2024, he was sentenced to 13.5 years in a high-security penal colony.