Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced the arrest of over a dozen people said to have been part of an extremist community in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic in the North Caucasus region.
In a statement published on Monday, the FSB said its agents, together with Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard, had suppressed the activity of an extremist group whose members were coordinating their actions through WhatsApp.
A total of 15 Russian citizens were arrested in the crackdown in the village of Islamey in the Baksan District. The suspects have been accused of being involved in the “public dissemination of radical ideology based on the denial of traditional Islamic norms and the laws of the Russian Federation, as well as committing violent acts motivated by religious hatred.”
The FSB added that Russia’s Investigative Committee had opened a criminal investigation for “the creation of an extremist community” and for “participation in an extremist community.” If the suspects are found guilty, they could face up to ten years in prison.
Svetlana Petrenko, a representative of the Investigative Committee, also told journalists that the suspected leader of the group, Rezuan Kangezov, is believed to have created the community in 2023 with the aim of “using violent methods of persuasion against an unlimited number of people, preparing and committing crimes against them based on religious hatred and enmity.”
“On the instructions of the leader of the extremist community, its members subjected individuals whose behavior did not correspond to the radical extremist ideology” to physical violence and psychological pressure, Petrenko said.
Investigators have also conducted searches at the residences of the arrested suspects, during which prohibited religious literature was discovered and confiscated by the authorities.
The FSB also shared a video in which several of the suspects were detained, as well as footage of a search at one of the residences, during which police appear to have found a number of firearms and boxes of ammunition.