Man abducted from Moscow train station by Chechen operatives is released by captors

A Russian man who was abducted by plain clothes operatives working for the Chechen government from Moscow’s Yaroslavsky station on Tuesday evening, has been released by his captors, Telegram channel NEXTA Live reported on Wednesday.

Video footage posted online shows a visibly battered and bruised Areg Shchepikhin describing his ordeal, which saw him taken to a location outside Moscow and made to confess to having links to Ukraine.

Footage of four men abducting Shchepikhin at the Yaroslavsky railway station and taking him away in the trunk of a Mercedes with flashing lights appeared online late on Tuesday. The car’s licence plate number contained the letters AMR, which frequently signify a connection to Russia’s security forces.

In the footage of his abduction, Shchepikhin, who posted a video online that was deemed insulting to Chechens and Muslims shortly before his kidnapping, can be heard shouting “Stop!” and asking passersby to call the police.

Akhmed Dudaev, the Chechen National Policy Minister, wrote on Telegram Wednesday that Shchepikhin had not been “kidnapped, but detained” by Chechen law enforcement officers working in conjunction with their Moscow counterparts.

Dudaev said Shchepikhin was being investigated for insulting the religious feelings of believers and could also face charges for rehabilitating Nazism, making public calls for extremism and incitement to hatred. Dudaev added that Shchepikhin had “openly, publicly, and repeatedly called for ethnic cleansing and Nazism, insulted religion and God, and also expressed clearly extremist views and declared his intention to rape young children,” the BBC continued.

In his original video, which was reposted shortly before the abduction by popular Chechen blogger Sahab Makalov among others, Shchepikhin calls somebody a “Chechen bitch” and insults the Quran and Allah. Makalov also posted the footage from Yaroslavsky railway station, and confirmed Shchepikin’s identity.

The Mercedes has previously been seen driving in convoy with a Mercedes Maybach linked to the entourage of head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU reported on Wednesday, and the Maybach is thought to belong to Adam Delimkhanov, who represents Chechnya in the State Duma, the channel added.