Russian law enforcement agencies have claimed that members of the Batalkhadzhin Sufi community were linked to the Caucasus Emirate*, a militant Islamist organisation. Human rights advocates, however, have questioned the allegations, noting that the group effectively ceased to exist more than a decade ago and that publicly available case materials contain little evidence of specific acts of support for militants.

On July 9, the Russian daily Kommersant reported that the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee were investigating a group that investigators believe was connected to the Caucasus Emirate. According to the investigation, the group's organiser was Ibrahim Belkhoroyev, one of the leaders of the Batalkhadzhin wird, a Sufi religious community that traces its origins to Sheikh Batal-Hadji Belkhoroyev.

Belkhoroyev was killed in Ingushetia in December 2018, and criminal proceedings against him were therefore discontinued. Investigators also identified five brothers — Magomed, Ruslan, Aslan, Askhab and Yakub Mutsolgov — as alleged members of the group. (The family is unrelated to human rights activist Magomed Mutsolgov — New DOSH.)

According to investigators, Belkhoroyev sought to destabilise the political, economic and social situation in the North Caucasus and disrupt the functioning of state institutions. They allege that his objectives coincided with those of Doku Umarov, leader of the Caucasus Emirate, and Aslan Byutukayev, one of the insurgency's most prominent commanders.

The case materials further claim that in 2007, "Ibrahim Belkhoroyev's unit" became part of the Caucasus Emirate established by Umarov. The defendants are also accused of providing logistical, financial and other forms of assistance to members of the organisation until December 2025.

However, the publicly available materials describe only one specific episode of alleged support for militants — sheltering Alexander Tikhomirov, better known by his nom de guerre Said Buryatsky, one of the insurgency's leaders.
 

The Caucasus Emirate No Longer Existed

The central question surrounding the investigation concerns its chronology.

Alexander Cherkasov***, a member of the board of the Memorial Centre**, points out that the Caucasus Emirate had effectively ceased to exist long before 2025.

"The Emirate effectively ceased to exist in the summer of 2014, after the next 'Emir of the Emirate' was killed and no successor was elected. By that time, groups that had previously been part of the Emirate had already pledged allegiance to the Islamic State," Cherkasov said.

The claim that the defendants continued supporting the Caucasus Emirate until December 2025 therefore requires further explanation, since the organisation that investigators say they were assisting had ceased to exist in its original form many years earlier.

Belkhoroyev himself cannot respond to the allegations. He was shot dead in an assassination attack in December 2018, and his murder remains unsolved.

The Mutsolgov brothers remain the principal defendants in the new case. Four of them were remanded in custody by Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky District Court in 2025. Magomed Mutsolgov was detained in Ingushetia on July 5, 2026.

Initially, the brothers faced charges unrelated to terrorism. They were accused of alleged real estate fraud in Moscow, as well as the kidnapping and murder of property owners.
 

A Long-Running Conflict With Security Forces

The new case unfolds against the backdrop of a years-long confrontation between Russian security agencies and part of the Batalkhadzhin community.

Representatives of the wird previously accused Ibrahim Eldzharkiyev, then head of the Interior Ministry's Centre for Combating Extremism ("Centre E") in Ingushetia, of involvement in the killing of Ibrahim Belkhoroyev. In November 2019, Eldzharkiyev and his brother Akhmed were shot dead in Moscow.

In 2023, Ingushetia resident Kureysh Kartoyev confessed to the killings, saying he had acted in revenge for the death of one of the Batalkhadzhin leaders. Akhmed Belkhoroyev, the slain Ibrahim's brother, also publicly described Eldzharkiyev's killing as an act of blood revenge.

Human rights advocates have repeatedly criticised the methods used by Russian security services against members of the wird. Memorial has extensively documented the persecution of Batalkhadzhins and has interpreted the campaign in the context of the conflict that followed the killings of Belkhoroyev and Eldzharkiyev.

The latest allegations of links to the militant underground have also drawn scepticism from human rights advocates. The publicly available version of the case still lacks detailed evidence explaining how members of the Batalkhadzhin community could have supported the Caucasus Emirate years after the organisation had effectively disintegrated.
 

Belkhoroyev Family Calls Allegations a "Provocation"

Members of the Belkhoroyev family have categorically rejected the claims published by Kommersant, describing the report as a "commissioned provocation."

They responded particularly sharply to allegations against the late Ibrahim Belkhoroyev.

"Particularly cynical is the attempt to defame the memory of Ibrahim Belkhoroyev, the great-grandson of Sheikh Batal-Hadji Belkhoroyev, who was a close friend of Hero of Russia Ramzan Kadyrov and regularly participated in major religious and public events across the North Caucasus," the family's statement said.

According to the family, Ibrahim Belkhoroyev, together with other religious leaders, publicly opposed Wahhabism and extremism while maintaining contacts with Russian officials and representatives of the security services.

His brother, Akhmed Belkhoroyev, dismissed as fabrication the claims that members of the Batalkhadzhin community had maintained contacts with Doku Umarov, Aslan Byutukayev or the Caucasus Emirate.

He also rejected the allegation that the community had sheltered Said Buryatsky. According to Akhmed Belkhoroyev, the Kartoyev family, which investigators associate with that episode, did not belong to the Batalkhadzhin wird at the time Tikhomirov was killed in 2010.

The new allegations therefore substantially expand the earlier criminal cases against members of the Batalkhadzhin community, moving beyond accusations of property crimes, kidnappings and murders to alleged involvement with the militant underground. Yet the central question remains unanswered: how could the defendants have continued supporting the Caucasus Emirate until the end of 2025 if, according to researchers and human rights advocates, the organisation had ceased to exist roughly a decade earlier?

* The Caucasus Emirate is designated as a terrorist organisation and banned in Russia.

** The International Memorial movement and all projects using the "Memorial" name have been designated extremist organisations by the Russian Supreme Court and are banned in Russia.

*** Alexander Cherkasov has been designated a "foreign agent" by Russia's Ministry of Justice.