Associated with the FSB website Kavkaz.Realii about the beating of Nikita Zhuravel

A video appeared on Ramzan Kadyrov’s telegram channel with Nikita Zhuravel, who was arrested in the case of burning the Koran - in these frames he is beaten by the 15-year-old son of the head of Chechnya, Adam Kadyrov. The video was made public a month after Zhuravel himself announced the beating. On the same day, TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak said that Kadyrov, “alive and healthy,” told her the details of what happened in the Grozny pre-trial detention center. The website Kavkaz.Realii, associated with the Fifth Service of the FSB of the Russian Federation, looked into why the head of Chechnya returned to this story again.

"Challenge to the legal system"

A video of the beating of 19-year-old Zhuravel was published on the evening of September 25. In these footage, Adam Kadyrov punches and kicks the detainee, and then throws him to the floor - he does not resist.

The beating takes place in one of the office offices of the pre-trial detention center - in the corner of the room you can see the flag of Chechnya. It is impossible to determine exactly when the video was recorded. In August, in a complaint addressed to Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, the arrested person wrote that the attack on him occurred during the visit of Ramzan Kadyrov on the 14th of 2023 - but the month was written illegibly.

From the published video fragment it is unclear how many people were in the office at the time of the beating and whether the head of Chechnya was present. In addition to Adam Kadyrov and Nikita Zhuravel, there was at least a cameraman who shot these shots. However, judging by the metadata of the video, only an edited fragment of the original recording was posted on Kadyrov’s Telegram channel: the file is called “Adam New.”

Kadyrov explained the publication of video evidence of the beating of the detainee by saying that he “does not like understatement.” He stated that he was proud of Adam's action, which "beat and did the right thing."

Member of the Human Rights Council Eva Merkacheva called the incident “a challenge to the entire legal system of Russia” and called for Zhuravel to be taken out of Grozny. There is now evidence in the case, the fact of beating the detainee is not disputed by anyone, and the identity of the attacker has already been established - on these grounds, according to Merkacheva, she is preparing a request to the Investigative Committee.

It is noteworthy that Yevgeny Popov, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy and host of the propaganda show “60 Minutes,” called what happened in the Grozny pre-trial detention center “illegal”: he recalled that “the punishment for the criminal is determined by the court.” Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexey Kulesh also spoke about the need to hold Adam Kadyrov accountable.

At the same time, the head of the Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, spoke much more restrainedly about the beating in the Grozny pre-trial detention center, calling it not the actions of Kadyrov’s son, but the burning of the Koran, a “serious crime.” He emphasized that he did not watch the video, it was “retold” to him.