Aishat Baymuradova, who had been missing in Yerevan since October 15, was found dead, according to the Armenian police. The news was confirmed to The Insider by both the authorities and acquaintances of Baymuradova. The young woman had fled Russia with the help of human rights activists to escape domestic violence.
Police said the circumstances of her death remain unclear and are under investigation.
Friends of the deceased told The Insider that she was found during the night of Sunday to Monday, October 20:
“Aishat was found by the police together with the owners of the apartment [where the woman she met the day before her disappearance lived — The Insider]. She went out for a walk with a friend — as I understand it, it was a setup. She met a Chechen woman on Instagram, who invited her to meet. After that, she never got in touch again.”
Her friends and acquaintances believe that her death was not a suicide.
“She didn’t end up there by accident — that’s one hundred percent,” one of The Insider’s sources said.
Aishat stopped responding to messages on October 15, after going to meet her “friend from Instagram” and never returning.
Later, The Insider discovered that among the followers of the woman Aishat was supposed to meet were individuals connected to Ramzan Kadyrov’s circle.
Women from the North Caucasus republics who flee domestic abuse or the threat of forced marriage are often pursued and targeted even after escaping to other regions of Russia or neighboring countries. The most high-profile such case was the abduction of Chechen woman Seda Suleymanova, who was kidnapped in St. Petersburg in 2023 and forcibly taken back to Chechnya. She has not been heard from since. Her friends and human rights defenders believe that Seda was killed by her relatives.
