Family members of Kadyrov’s critics were forcibly sent to the front from Chechnya

In Chechnya, four relatives of the Yangulbaev brothers, known for criticizing the head of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov, were forcibly sent to the war, Kavkaz.Realii website reports.

One of the brothers, Abubakar Yangulbaev, told about the situation in his Telegram channel. According to him, his father’s 55-year-old brother Said-Ahmed Yangulbaev, two sons of another brother – Adam and Yusup Yangulbaev, and the son of his third brother, Hasan Yangulbaev, are going to the front in Ukraine. Other than Adam, Yusup and Hasan, their fathers do not have other sons. Hassan is the father of a newborn child, and Adam also has a small child.

Said-Ahmed and Adam appear in a propaganda video published by Ramzan Kadyrov – on August 7, he reported on sending another group of “volunteers” to the front, who allegedly underwent military training at the so-called “Special Forces University” in Gudermes.

In a comment on the website Kavkaz.Realii, Abubakar Yangulbaev clarified that his relatives were detained by the police and taken to the “special forces university”, where in their case “training” took only two or three days, after which they were immediately enrolled in the “Akhmat” special unit and sent to Ukraine.

• Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, human rights defenders and sources of the website Kavkaz.Realii have repeatedly said that the participants of the invasion were often residents of the republic protected by security forces. Some of them were offered to go to war – under the threat of torture and prison terms. Relatives of Chechen opposition activists also become soldiers.
• Saydy Yangulbayev, the father of the brothers Abubakar, Ibrahim and Baisangur Yangulbayev, is a retired federal judge. On January 20, 2022, in Nizhny Novgorod, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya broke into his apartment and forcibly took his wife, Zarema Musaeva, who has diabetes, to Grozny. First, Musaeva was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest on charges of insulting a police officer, and then a criminal case was opened against her. Musaeva was later charged with fraud. In July, she was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. The human rights project “Support of political prisoners. Memorial” recognized Zarema Musaev as a political prisoner.
• Abubakar Yangulbaev is a human rights activist, his brothers Ibrahim and Baysangur are connected with the opposition Telegram channel 1ADAT.
• Ramzan Kadyrov threatened the Yangulbaev family with reprisals the next day after the abduction of Zarema Musaeva. The threats were later joined by high-ranking Chechen law enforcement officers and other officials. On February 2, a rally was held in the center of Grozny against the Yangulbaev family – their portraits were burned, trampled and torn at the rally.