When borders fail to protect. Missing Chechen woman Aishat Baimuradova found dead in Yerevan

Armenian police said a member of the public reported finding her body in an apartment on Demirchyan Street on October 19. A preliminary investigation is underway, and authorities have ordered forensic examinations to determine the circumstances surrounding her death.

Lidia Mikhalchenko, a journalist who founded the human rights project “Caucasus without a Mother” and had been in contact with Baimuradova, told the investigative outlet Agentstvo that she believed the young woman had been strangled.

She said the murder took place on the night of October15 and that CCTV footage captured two potential suspects, one of whom she described as a female “spotter” who may have set Baimuradova up. Mikhalchenko also claimed both later travelled to Russia. However, Mikhalchenko later asked Agentstvo to clarify that this information was “unverified”.

Baimuradova fled her native Chechnya to escape domestic violence, according to Ostorozhno, Novosti, a news Telegram channel, which cited her acquaintances. The activist Daniil Chebykin confirmed that a human rights organisation had helped her relocate.

Chebykin reported that Baimuradova had gone missng on the evening of October 15; she had told roommates she was going out to meet a woman she had befriended on Instagram. Chebykin later wrote that the new friend’s social media account was followed by “people from the circle of” Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Under Kadyrov’s rule, domestic violence in Chechnya has become effectively institutionalised. The regime promotes the idea that women’s lives must be strictly controlled by male relatives, and the concept of family “honour” is used to justify extreme violence, including “honour killings” over “immoral” behaviour used to restore the family’s reputation. Russia’s criminal code is treated flexibly in such cases.

One of the most prominent examples is that of Seda Suleymanova, who fled Chechnya in 2022 after her family threatened to kill her for refusing a forced marriage. With help from human rights activists, she resettled in St Petersburg, but in August 2023 police abducted her and forcibly returned her to Grozny. Despite public outrage, there have been no verified updates on her fate. In June 2025, the Russian Interior Ministry added her to its federal database of missing persons, even though officials had previously admitted she had been detained and handed back to her relatives in Chechnya.

The pattern of Chechen security operatives acting with impunity continues to surface across Russia. Earlier this year, blogger Areg Shchepikhin was sentenced to five years in prison in Moscow, shortly after he was abducted in the city centre by men linked to Kadyrov’s forces. 

Since 2017, Chechen authorities have conducted systematic purges targeting people based on their perceived sexual orientation. These campaigns have involved forced disappearances, secret detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. Although primarily directed at gay and bisexual men, lesbian and bisexual women have likewise been targeted. 

“We don’t have any gays,” Kadyrov famously said in an interview with HBO.

In January 2024, a court in Yerevan refused Russia’s request to extradite Salman Mukaev, a 41-year-old Chechen man who had been tortured in Grozny over suspicions of homosexuality. The court granted him asylum in Armenia.