Four residents of Dagestan are being held in a Rostov-on-Don pretrial detention center on terrorism charges. Investigators claim they planned to set fire to a military base in Makhachkala on behalf of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment (banned in Russia), but the defendants deny their guilt and call the case fabricated.
Magomed Dzhavatkhanov, Ruslan Akkayev, Khadzhimurad Abdullayev, and Rajab Nazarov were detained in December 2022. Afterward, they claim they were subjected to brutal torture.
According to investigators, reading the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche led them to adopt "neo-Nazi" views and support for Ukraine. During the searches, items bearing Azov symbols were allegedly confiscated from Dzhavatkhanov, and camouflage clothing and patches with "Nazi symbols" were seized from Akkayev. The defendants claim that all of these items were planted on them.
