Dmitry Menyaev, a 21-year-old ethnic Chechen who was born in Russia and moved to Georgia in 2022, was found dead in his apartment in Batumi on August 15, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian service.
It’s unclear when Menyaev died. He worked remotely and was last seen online on Telegram on August 3. Emergency responders forced open the door after neighbors complained of a strong smell.
According to RFE/RL, Menyaev had undergone a gender transition. In remarks quoted by the outlet Noctu, Zviad Markoidze, a lawyer for the family, said Menyaev was a member of the LGBTQ community.
Investigators have opened a criminal investigation into incitement to suicide, but Menyaev’s relatives suspect he may have been the victim of an “honor killing” or of a murder motivated by transphobia. They believe the killing could have been carried out by other relatives on the Chechen side of his family, who did not know about his transition and wrote that he “needed to get married” — using a Russian phrase that refers only to a woman taking a husband.
People close to Menyaev also say they found signs that someone else had been in the apartment, along with marks “indicating that the death was violent.”
In recent years, Georgia and neighboring Armenia have seen several cases in which Chechen women who fled domestic violence were tracked down. In July 2025, the human rights group Marem said relatives had tried to kidnap Laura Avtorkhanova, a Chechnya native who had moved to Georgia. Aishat Baimuradova, 23, another woman from Chechnya who had fled her relatives, was killed in Yerevan in the fall of 2025. She went to meet a woman she knew from social media and never came back. Journalists later found that the woman’s circle included people close to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
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