A Chechen woman who was murdered in Armenia after escaping her abusive family was a relative of Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov, according to human rights advocates.
Twenty-three year old Aishat Baimuradova was found dead in her Yerevan apartment in October. Activists reported at the time that she had recently met with an Instagram acquaintance who had social media connections to people in Kadyrov’s circle.
In a video report released by TV Rain on Monday, Svetlana Anokhina, co-founder of the Dagestan-based human rights group Marem, said that Aishat’s grandmother was a first cousin to Akhmat Kadyrov, the father of Chechnya’s current head.
Anokhina first met Aishat in early 2024, when the young woman approached her with a “wild, shocking story about her life,” she told TV Rain. According to Anokhina, Aishat’s mother was thrown out of her home in the final weeks of her pregnancy. After her birth, Aishat’s father took his daughter away from her mother and forbade them from seeing each other. When he later remarried, Aishat was forced to become a “nanny,” cleaning up after the entire family and eating only after all the men had finished. Anokhina said that Aishat was beaten and raped by both her father and her grandfather.
When she was 17, Aishat’s family forced her to marry Alsoult Seliyev, a shooting instructor who has trained Kadyrov’s soldiers. An acquaintance of Aishat referred to the marriage “true domestic, physical, and sexual slavery.” According to Anokhina, Seliyev regularly beat and raped Aishat. She also told friends and human rights activists that he installed cameras throughout the house to monitor her while he took drugs. One of her friends suspected that Seliyev was also putting drugs into Aishat’s food, as she complained of experiencing hallucinations around that time.
Aishat attempted to flee her husband and return to her family twice, but both times, her relatives beat her and sent her back to Seliyev. After this, Aishat reached out to human rights activists, who helped her escape Chechnya. After spending a year planning the escape, Aishat flew to Yerevan in January 2025. According to the activists, Aishat’s relatives didn’t immediately pursue her, but her husband did threaten to starve their child after learning of her escape.
In Armenia, Aishat started using the name Alex and became active on social media, where she posted photos with geotags and publicly criticized the treatment of women in Chechnya. “One thing I can’t say is that she was foolish,” one of her friends said. “She understood the risk of being attacked. She said she wanted to fight. She worked out a lot. If they tried to kidnap her, she planned to resist. She loved her homeland, called herself a proud Chechen, and wanted Chechnya to be free of Kadyrov.” According to other acquaintances, Aishat received numerous threats in private messages.
Chechnya’s ‘honor killings’
Aishat was last seen with a woman named Karina Iminova, whom she had met on social media. Iminova, who introduced herself as a native of Dagestan who supported Aishat’s advocacy, repeatedly asked to visit Aishat and invited her to her home. She promised to help Aishat either get “a good job” or leave Armenia.
Shortly before her disappearance, Aishat met with Iminova, who had flown to Yerevan on October 14. After spending time together in public, they went to Iminova’s place to spend the night. In the early hours of October 15, Aishat messaged her friends that she was fine, but she stopped replying to messages soon after.
Several days later, Aishat’s body was found in a rental apartment in the center of Yerevan. “She died a difficult, agonizing, and prolonged death,” activist David Isteev told TV Rain. “The apartment was covered in blood. It appears her killers sat and waited for her to die.”
The Armenian authorities have not reported the official cause of Aishat’s death. Lidia Mikhalchenko, founder of the Caucasus Without Mothers project, told Meduza back in October that she suspects she was strangled. However, a source close to the investigation told TV Rain that Aishat was poisoned.
According to TV Rain, surveillance footage from a camera on the building where Aishat was killed shows Iminova getting into a taxi with a man on October 16. Isteev told the outlet that both subsequently flew to Moscow. The report alleges that Iminova was accompanied by a Chechen man named Said-Khamzat Baysarov, whose uncle Ruslan Baysarov is a friend of Ramzan Kadyrov. Media reports have referred to Baysarov as “Kadyrov’s wallet.”
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TV Rain also reports that Karina Iminova was born in Kyrgyzstan. “Leaked databases link her to addresses in expensive residential complexes in Moscow,” reported journalist Valeria Kirsanova. “Many people have her contact saved as an escort, and people from the Chechen leader’s inner circle were found among her Instagram followers.” Iminova has reportedly also attempted to befriend other young Chechen women.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into Aishat’s murder only in November. Investigators are pursuing two official suspects, but their names have not been disclosed.
Human right activists have speculated that individuals close to Ramzan Kadyrov may have known about Aishat’s planned murder in advance — and that the murder case may be suppressed or transferred to Russia. Aishat’s body remains in a Yerevan morgue, as her relatives have refused to claim it.
The only Russian official who has commented on the case is Chechnen Human Rights Commissioner Mantur Soltayev, who blamed human rights activists for Aishat’s murder.