Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Thursday that the Prosecutor’s Office in the Volgograd region approved an indictment against Nikita Zhuravel, who was charged with treason under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code. The maximum penalty for treason under the Russian Criminal Code is life imprisonment.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office investigation, Zhuravel offered to cooperate with a representative of Ukraine’s security service. Zhuravel allegedly sent the representative videos of a train carrying Russian military equipment, and provided data on an official military vehicle’s movement.
Russian human rights group Memorial considers Zhruavel a political prisoner and has expressed doubts that he simultaneously carried out surveillance for Ukrainian intelligence services and burned the Quran, as prosecutors charge. Memorial demanded an “end to Nikita Zhuravel’s persecution and his immediate release.” Zhuravel is recognized on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s Frank R. Wolf Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List.
In February, the Visaitovsky District Court in Grozny, the capital city of the Chechen Republic, found—then 20-year-old—Zhuravel guilty of offending religious believers and hooliganism, sentencing him to three and a half years in prison. Zhuravel was arrested in May 2023 after being suspected of setting fire to a copy of the Quran in front of a mosque in Volgograd. Russia’s Investigative Committee claimed that Zhuravel confessed to burning the Quran in exchange for 10,000 rubles on Ukrainian intelligence services orders.
Zhuravel was ordered to stand trial in the majority-Muslim Chechen Republic. Although the incident occurred in Volgograd, prior to the sentencing, Zhuravel had to await trial in a pretrial detention center in Chechnya. Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, posted a video to his Telegram channel of his 15-year-old son Adam Kadyrov beating Zhuravel while he was held in the detention center. Chechen authorities did not open a criminal case investigating this incident as Adam was a minor.
