Report on Human Rights Violations in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic for September 2025
An analysis of public sources for September 2025, including media reports, online resources, and statements from private individuals, reveals a persistent negative trend of human rights and freedoms being violated by the authorities and security forces of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. These violations are primarily related to ongoing politically motivated repression, judicial falsifications, violations of the right to a fair trial, and actions that facilitate a slow-moving cultural colonialism. These events highlight the need for further efforts to protect human rights both in the North Caucasus in general and in Kabardino-Balkaria in particular.
The trial of Timur Kishukov, a US citizen.
Timur Kishukov, a native of Kabardino-Balkaria with US citizenship, businessman, and father of four, was convicted of terrorism for refusing to cooperate with the FSB. Timur Kishukov received US citizenship in 2017.
He lived in Chicago and worked as a truck driver, and shortly before leaving for Russia, he opened his own logistics company there. In November of last year, during a visit to the republic, Timur Kishukov was detained by FSB officers. On the eve of Kishukov’s flight back to the US, he was detained at his parents’ home by FSB officers in the republic, who took him to an unknown location without explanation.
Kishukov ended up in a basement, where he was interrogated for several hours about his views on the war against Ukraine and about Russians in his circle who are working for US intelligence agencies. Kishukov responded that he was for world peace and knew nothing about CIA agents. He was then beaten, and a criminal case was opened that same evening, November 18, 2024. The suspect reported the beating and threats at his first pretrial detention hearing, but his words yielded no results. At the Nalchik office of the FSB for Kabardino-Balkaria, Kishukov was charged with terrorism, participation in an illegal armed group in Syria, and undergoing training for the same. The only basis for the charges was the testimony of three secret witnesses; the prosecution had no other arguments. Despite this, the court sentenced the defendant to seven months in pretrial detention.
During the winter months, Kishukov was placed in the most remote solitary confinement cell on the ground floor, where the temperature dropped to minus 15 degrees Celsius.
Kishukov’s case is currently being heard in the Southern District Military Court, and he is being held in a pretrial detention facility in Rostov-on-Don. In September 2025, it was announced that the defendant was facing a sentence of approximately 20 years in prison. Kishukov’s relatives claim that Timur was detained solely because of his American citizenship. They say one of his officers explicitly stated that he was being held for a hostage exchange. Such a practice is common among Russian security forces. At the end of 2023, in neighboring Adygea, a court, using a similar scheme, sentenced 18-year-old German citizen Kevin Lik to four years in prison for treason for allegedly assisting a foreign state—Germany—in activities “directed against the Russian Federation.” In August 2025, the Kremlin exchanged political prisoners, including Kevin Lik, for its agents held in Western prisons, including the killer Vadim Krasikov, who is serving a life sentence in Germany for the murder of Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. It is noteworthy that Kishukov’s case is being handled by the infamous senior investigator of the FSB Directorate for Kabardino-Balkaria, Alexei Slugin, who, among other things, three years ago handled the case of blogger Insalander (Insa Oguz), whose prosecution human rights activists have deemed politically motivated. Insa lived in Moscow and worked as an investigative journalist exposing corruption and human rights violations in Kabardino-Balkaria. Upon arriving to visit relatives in Baksan, she was detained and taken for interrogation to the FSB in Nalchik, where she was forced to confess to aiding terrorism—she allegedly persuaded people to join illegal groups in Russia.
Then, as in the case of Timur Kishukov, investigator Slugin added Syria. Insa Oguz managed to escape house arrest and crossed the border into Georgia—no criminal record was registered in the database. However, Georgian border guards denied her entry for two weeks without explanation. The blogger spent this entire time in the neutral zone until the intervention of Lithuanian Ambassador to Georgia Andrius Kalindra, who announced his willingness to transfer Insa to Vilnius. A blogger from Kabardino-Balkaria has been declared wanted in Russia.
The method of burdening criminal charges with speculation about loyalty, sympathy, or affiliation with banned organizations, as well as the use of “secret witnesses” as the only available argument, is a favorite tactic for expanding the indictment, which has become the “gold standard” of Russian security forces, including in Kabardino-Balkaria.
A charge has been brought against Anzor Khalilov, one of the largest developers in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, for refusing to pay a bribe.
A similar way to previous case charge was brought against Anzor Khalilov, one of the republic’s largest developers. The pretext was formal and contrived: during a school event, his wife failed to stand during the playing of the Russian national anthem, and this became a tool for pressure. After the administrative penalty, the pressure and coercion began. Law enforcement agencies demanded 80 million rubles from Khalilov to cease prosecution, but he refused. In response, a criminal case was opened for sponsoring terrorism, based on his transfer of 15,000 rubles to the card of a resident of the republic with cancer, as part of a collection announced several years earlier under the pretext that the woman’s son had been listed as a terrorist and extremist. The prosecution’s case also relied on the testimony of a “secret witness” who allegedly saw Khalilov handing over money to someone undesirable to the authorities in Saudi Arabia during the Hajj.
However, Khalilov denies this, and the accusation is not supported by any photographic or video evidence. Today, forced to reside outside the country, Khalilov is completing his projects remotely, despite obstacles, demonstrating professionalism and responsibility to equity holders. In September 2025, Khalilov began posting video and audio messages on social media, describing his situation in the first person, thus breaking the one-sided information narrative.
https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/85802/posts/65535
Convicted Alzhuko Aslanukov appealed his sentence without admitting guilt.
Alzhuko Aslanukov, a 43-year-old resident of the Tersky District of Kabardino-Balkaria, sentenced to six years for possessing two grenades and a fuse, appealed the sentence without admitting guilt.
In a statement addressed to Vladimir Putin, he claims the case against him was fabricated. In 2020, Aslanukov was summoned to a meeting by an FSB detective for the Tersky District, who began intimidating and threatening him in accordance with a psychological pressure scheme that has become widespread in the North Caucasus. Aslanukov managed to record the conversation and turned the recording over to the FSB in an attempt to protect himself. The service launched an investigation, demoted the officer, and transferred him to another district. However, several years later, having returned to his post, he began seeking revenge against Aslanukov. Aslanukov emphasizes that the evidence against him is based solely on the testimony of a secret witness under the pseudonym “Alekseev,” and that genetic testing found no traces of his DNA on the grenades and fuse.
Valery Grebenyuk sentenced for abandoning his military unit.
The court sentenced Nalchik resident Valery Grebenyuk to six years in a maximum-security penal colony, finding him guilty of unauthorized abandonment of his military unit during mobilization.
On September 24, 2022, Parts 2.1, 3.1, and 5 of Article 337 were amended to the Russian Criminal Code, covering unauthorized abandonment of a unit or place of service during mobilization. The amendments provide for imprisonment for up to 10 years—the tightening of laws after the announcement of mobilization led to harsher sentences. Grebenyuk abandoned his unit without authorization on January 13, 2024, and was only discovered by police officers at his residence in Nalchik on February 28, 2025, and was found guilty under Part 5 of Article 337 of the Russian Criminal Code.
It is noteworthy that on September 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization. On October 28 of that year, the Minister of Defense reported its completion, but no corresponding decree followed. Putin’s press secretary explained that a presidential decree was not required to end partial mobilization. However, despite the fact that the defendant left his unit well after the end of October 2022, Russian courts in the Grebenyuk case and similar cases have assumed that partial mobilization had not ended at the time of the crime.
https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/415157
A teenager was arrested on terrorism charges.
In mid-September 2025, a teenager was arrested, whom security officials believe to be the second participant in the attack on a traffic police unit in Nalchik in July of this year. At the corner of Lenin Avenue and Nogmova Street in the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, a traffic police unit stopped a taxi that had run a red light. A man jumped out of the car with a knife, attacked one of the officers, and was shot dead. The second passenger attempted to escape but was apprehended. He turned out to be a minor resident of the republic, born in 2008, against whom a case has been opened under Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code (assistance to terrorist activity), Part 1 of Article 30, Clause “a” and Part 2 of Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code (preparation for a terrorist act committed by an organized group of persons), Part 3 of Article 30, and Clauses “a” and “b” of Part 4 of Article 226 of the Russian Criminal Code (attempted theft of a weapon). According to investigators, the teenager, having agreed to persuasion and persuasion, became a member of a terrorist organization and took part in the attack with the aim of acquiring weapons. The teenager himself, according to his relatives, claims that he ran away because, on the contrary, he did not expect the attack and was frightened. Relatives of the suspect said that the attacker had a drug addiction and likely committed the crime under the influence of prohibited substances. The teenager accused of terrorism led a secular lifestyle, didn’t pray, and had no interest in religion whatsoever. A source close to the defendant’s family is certain that the case was deliberately exaggerated and turned into this level of attention to create the illusion of a high-profile case being successfully resolved.
https://www.kavkazr.com/a/v-napadenii-na-silovikov-v-naljchike-obvinili-podrostka-/33531862.html
Yuriy Boyko was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for attempted treason.
In early September 2025, the Rostov Military Court sentenced 37-year-old Yuriy Boyko, a resident of Prokhladny, Kabardino-Balkaria, to 17 years in prison for attempted treason and participation in a terrorist organization. In December of last year, he was charged with attempting to participate in hostilities on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The charges were brought under Part 3 of Article 30, Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code (attempted treason), and Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code (participation in a terrorist organization). According to investigators, in January 2024, Boyko contacted a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine and announced his intentions to participate in hostilities.
https://zona.media/news/2025/08/29/boiko
Blind people with disabilities have filed a complaint against the Nalchik branch of the All-Russian Society of the Blind.
A group of blind people with disabilities, members of the Nalchik branch of the All-Russian Society of the Blind, claims that the city branch of the All-Russian Society of the Blind has practically ceased to fulfill its mandated functions, and has filed a complaint. Most of the branch’s 600 members have not received the necessary support for years—neither the rehabilitation they are entitled to, nor medical care, nor legal protection. Most importantly, the visually impaired have been left without jobs. The disabled people believe that society does nothing for them, except help the sighted obtain preferential treatment.
https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/415728
A construction company owned by a Kabardino-Balkarian parliament member is destroying ancient burial mounds.
Ancient burial mounds continue to be destroyed in Kabardino-Balkaria. A 73-kilometer-long, 2.4-billion-ruble group water pipeline is being built in the Baksan District of Kabardino-Balkaria. Within the pipeline’s construction boundaries, or in close proximity, are ancient burial mounds and settlements—archaeological sites of regional and federal significance—which have been partially destroyed as a result of the construction work. Pottery shards and other artifacts are scattered in areas where heavy equipment has passed. During the construction of the Baksan group pipeline, several burial mounds from the “Zayukovskaya Fourth Mound Group” were destroyed. These mounds were supposed to be preserved in accordance with the “Protection of Cultural Heritage Sites” section of the design documentation, held by ASSO LLC, the company responsible for the construction work.
Neither these nor any other cultural heritage sites listed in this section were fulfilled. Construction continued directly on the site of the ancient settlements. Following an appeal by activists to federal authorities and a subsequent investigation by investigative bodies, a decision was made to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings against Alisoltan Nastayev, the general director of ASSO LLC, who is also a member of the Kabardino-Balkarian Parliament.
https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/85802/posts/66432
The practice of imposing holidays on dates devoid of retrospective significance and historical meaning.
On September 20, the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities are calling for the celebration of “Adyghe Day” as an alternative to the May 21 march, which they themselves have banned, the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. Firstly, this is a local decision, formulated only in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and not coordinated with other republics or the diaspora. Secondly, it is a substitution of concepts, designed to erase the memory of the genocide by Russia and replace historical awareness with meaningless cultural events.
Residents of a renamed street in Baksan complained of a violation of their right to historical memory.
Residents of the former Nazir Katkhanov Street in Baksan attempted to challenge its renaming to Donbasskaya Street. They filed a lawsuit stating that they learned of the renaming at the end of November 2024, when they received utility bills showing the new name of the street. However, the opinions and interests of residents living on the renamed street were not taken into account. They cited the Regulation on the Procedure for Renaming Certain Territories or Objects, which requires the consent of street residents to change the name. The plaintiffs believe the renaming of the street is erroneous and has caused a negative public outcry. This decision, they argued, violates their right to historical memory, as well as their constitutional right to participate in local government. In response, their appeal was associated with the activities of the national opposition, threatening them with prosecution for their loyalty to extremist, separatist, and anti-patriotic ideas. The administrative plaintiffs filed a lawsuit. The court noted that in March, the plaintiffs had contacted the prosecutor’s office for an investigation. In April, the prosecutor’s office responded that no violations had been found. “The contested decisions of the local government council do not possess the necessary set of characteristics to classify them as normative legal acts, and therefore, the court concludes that there are no grounds for granting the claim,” the ruling states.
https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/85802/posts/66453
Conclusion.
The events covered in the September 2025 report in Kabardino-Balkaria are not atypical; on the contrary, they illustrate a persistent vector of consistent, prolonged violations of basic human rights. Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable, subjected to selective persecution and discrimination, as well as systematic assimilation and forced Russification through actions aimed at destroying national identity and historical memory. Kabardino-Balkaria is a republic where a systemic and growing trend toward disregarding generally accepted standards for the protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms requires the close attention of the international community.