Armenian law-enforcement authorities said on Monday that they are conducting forensic tests and taking other measures to establish the cause of Ayshat Baymuradova’s death. It remained unclear whether they found any traces of violence on her body.
According to Lidia Mikhalchenko, the founder of a Russian women’s right group focusing on the North Caucasus, investigators believe that Baymuradova was strangled to death. Mikhalchenko also said two potential suspects, both of them men, were caught on security cameras of the apartment block where the 23-year-old woman died.
A Yerevan-based Russian acquaintance of Baymuradova, who did not want to be identified, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that she was most probably lured into the rented apartment by another Chechen person whom she met on the social media network Instragram.
“She claimed to come from Chechnya but live in Moscow,” said the man, who alerted the Armenian police about Baymuradova’s disappearance on October 15. “This ‘girl,’ Karina, who was apparently a fake user, invited her to her rented apartment. Judging by what happened, it was a trap.”
“[Baymuradova] fled not even from Russian laws but from Chechnya’s rules,” he said. “She wanted to live like people in other countries, in Armenia, in Europe. That was impossible in Chechnya, especially since she didn’t accept traditional rules of conduct for women in Chechnya.”
Chechnya is a deeply conservative Muslim republic which has been ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov with an iron fist for nearly two decades. Kadyrov’s administration is one of the most repressive in Russia.
In 2023, a 21-year-old woman from the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia, Fatima Zurabova, likewise fled to Armenia, alleging abuse at the hands of her family members. She refused to return home despite appeals and, reportedly, threats voiced by her uncle at a police station in Yerevan.