Chechen authorities ‘abduct hundreds of school children’ over video showing burning of Russian flag

The Telegram channel Niyso has claimed that hundreds of schoolchildren, aged at least 12, as well as their family members, have been kidnapped in Chechnya in an attempt to identify an unknown person seen burning a Russian flag in a video.

The video was published by Niyso on Monday. It shows a blurred person setting fire to a Russian flag on a flagpole.

On Wednesday, Niyso published a follow-up post clarifying that the video was recorded at a school in the village of Achkhoi-Martan, Chechnya, and that they had received reports of ‘mass abductions of students from this school, starting from the age of 12, as well as male members of their families, by the Russian authorities’.

‘The number of abducted is several hundred people, all of them are interrogated, trying to find out who committed this arson. And all this, mind you, because of the [burning of the] Russian flag’, the channel wrote.

The administrators of the channel, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, provided OC Media with screenshots of messages they had received from local residents describing the abductions. Niyso’s administrators added that two other flags were burnt alongside the Russian one — Chechnya’s flag and the flag of the municipality.

The administrators said that they knew the identity of the person who burnt the flags, but were not willing to share any details about him, his whereabouts, or whether he was a student or a teacher at the school. They said that the burning of the flags was not an act of vandalism, but a political action.

Niyso’s administrators said that it was ‘important for the Russian regime to find the perpetrators of arson and punish them, as such things serve as “‘a bad example” and foster anti-Russian sentiments’.

‘It seems like a small thing, but in Chechnya it is perceived as a big problem that needs to be suppressed urgently’, they said, adding that the incident had taken place earlier during the week, but the flags were simply changed by the authorities who did not want to publicise the incident. They said that the authorities have escalated their search for the perpetrator after they had published the video on their channel.

The administrators also said that there were previous cases of arson in Chechnya that they believed were politically motivated.

In October 2024, security forces also reportedly kidnapped several people from the village of Engal-Yurt in Gudermes after someone had set fire to fields in the village, which Niyso says had been seized by the authorities.

In May 2024, Chechen authorities reportedly abducted 80–90 people after a man burnt a car decorated with symbols associated with the Kadyrovs. The suspect was allegedly found, but was never named by the authorities.

In December 2022, there were also reports of mass detentions in Urus-Martan following a conflict between a traffic police officer and special forces officer who refused to obey him.

Over 400 people were reportedly detained in Grozny, Kurchaloy, Gudermes, and Shali between December 2016 and January 2017 after the murder of five police officers in Grozny.

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