Lena Patyaeva has been released after being arrested for picketing Seda Suleimanova's fate.

Seda Suleimanova's friend, Lena Patyaeva, was released from a special detention facility in St. Petersburg after serving ten days in jail for picketing outside the police station, where the Chechen native was handed over to her relatives.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on November 27, the Krasnoselsky District Court of St. Petersburg deemed Elena Patyaeva's solo picket a repeat violation of the rules for holding a public event and sentenced her to 10 days in jail. During a call to an acquaintance on November 29, the activist complained about bedbugs in her detention cell and the poor quality of the food. On December 2, Patyaeva reported that police were trying to detect "signs of extremism" in the text of her poster.

Lena Patyaeva was released from a special detention center on the evening of December 5th after serving ten days of administrative arrest, the Slovo Zashchity project reported this evening.

Patyaeva's ten-day arrest was for picketing with a poster reading, "You sent her to her death. Live with it." Judge Nadezhda Barilchenko of the Krasnoselsky District Court of St. Petersburg deemed the picket a repeat violation of public order, according to the project's Telegram channel.

Lena Patyaeva is a friend of Seda Suleimanova and the organizer of a campaign demanding an investigation into her disappearance. Security forces have repeatedly detained her for public protests related to the Suleimanova case: in August, the activist held a solo picket for four hours near the Akhmat Kadyrov Bridge, after which she was taken to the police station. In April, she received 20 hours of community service for a picket on the same Patyaeva Bridge.

In March, Lena Patyaeva held a picket in Grozny, where she was also taken to the police, but released without a report. Meanwhile, Grozny security forces called Suleimanova's fate a "family matter."

In April 2024, it became known that the Investigative Committee was investigating Seda Suleimanova's disappearance under the murder article. In January 2025, Patyaeva complained to the Prosecutor General's Office about the inaction of the investigation, stating that 10 months of investigation had yielded no results. On June 16, 2025, it was reported that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs had placed Sedya Suleimanov on the wanted list. The appearance of a wanted list card in the Ministry of Internal Affairs database indicates rather a sham of activity, human rights activists pointed out.