The Supreme Court upheld the sentence of Nikita Zhuravel.
Former Volgograd student Nikita Zhuravel's appeal against his treason conviction was dismissed.
As reported by "Caucasian Knot" in April 2025, the Third Court of Appeals upheld Nikita Zhuravel's treason conviction at a visiting hearing in the Volgograd Regional Court. On December 3, it was reported that Zhuravel was transferred to Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention center pending a hearing of his treason appeal in the Supreme Court of Russia.
On November 14, 2024, Volgograd resident Nikita Zhuravel was transferred from Chechnya to Volgograd, where his treason case is being heard. The voluntariness of Zhuravel's testimony regarding treason remains in question, but the closed nature of the trial makes it impossible to hear his statements, human rights activists noted. On November 25, 2024, a court in Volgograd sentenced Zhuravel to 13.5 years in prison on charges of treason (Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). Taking into account the remaining sentence in the Koran-burning case, the court sentenced him to 14 years in prison. Zhuravel appealed the verdict.
The cassation instance of the Supreme Court of Russia upheld the sentence of former Volgograd university student Nikita Zhuravel, who was sentenced a year ago to 13 years and 6 months in prison for treason. The hearing was held behind closed doors, the joint press service of the Volgograd Region courts reported today.
"The Volgograd Regional Court found that in 2023, Zhuravel entered into correspondence with a representative of the Ukrainian special services and subsequently carried out tasks assigned to him by his handler, which were directed against the security of the Russian Federation. The Visaitovsky District Court of Grozny also previously found him guilty of hooliganism and insulting the religious feelings of believers. The criminal division, having reviewed the cassation appeal, found no grounds for changing the sentence," TASS quoted the Supreme Court press service as saying.
As a reminder, on February 27, 2024, a court in Grozny sentenced Nikita Zhuravel to 3.5 years in prison, finding him guilty of violating the right to religion and hooliganism. for burning the Koran. On October 3, 2024, the Prosecutor General's Office announced the opening of a new case against Zhuravel for treason. According to investigators, he offered cooperation to a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine and sent him video recordings of a train carrying Russian military equipment, military aircraft, and data on the movements of a service vehicle of one of the military units.
On September 25, 2023, Ramzan Kadyrov published a video of his son Adam beating Zhuravel in a pretrial detention center. The head of Chechnya praised his son for this act. After this, Adam Kadyrov received the title of Hero of Chechnya and the highest state awards of Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, and in total, at least nine state and public awards.
More details on the Zhuravel case can be found in the "Caucasian Knot" report "The beating of Nikita Zhuravel: why did Kadyrov's men need to publish the video".
We have updated the apps for Android and IOS! We would be grateful for criticism and ideas for development both in Google Play/App Store and on KU pages in social networks. Without installing a VPN, you can read us on Telegram (in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia - with VPN). Using a VPN, you can continue reading "Caucasian Knot" on the website as usual, and on social networks: Facebook*, Instagram*, "VKontakte", "Odnoklassniki" and X. You can watch the "Caucasian Knot" video on YouTube. Send messages to +49 157 72317856 on WhatsApp*, to the same number on Telegram, or write to @Caucasian_Knot.
* Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.
Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/417782