Russia’s Supreme Court has designated the followers of the 19th century Ingush Sufi Sheikh Batalkhadzhi Belkhoroev a terrorist organisation. Members of the community have been accused of involvement in terrorist attacks, assisting Ukraine, and assassinations.
The Batalkhadzhi followers are adherents of the Sufi Sheikh Batalkhadzhi Belkhoroev, who lived in Ingushetia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The brotherhood is one of the most influential and secretive communities in Ingushetia, with around 20,000 members. Membership is inherited by birth, and people who left the clan were reportedly killed in the past. The community is led by direct descendants of its founder from the Belkhoroev teip, or clan.
The ruling was issued in response to an administrative lawsuit filed by Russia’s Prosecutor General. The hearing was held behind closed doors. The court concluded that the organisation’s aims and activities were directed at promoting, justifying, and supporting terrorism. The ruling takes effect immediately.
In February 2023, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) added the armed wing of Batalkhadzhi Belkhoroev’s followers to its list of terrorist organisations. Security officials linked its members to the murder of Ibrahim Eldzharkiev, head of the Interior Ministry’s Centre for Combating Extremism in Ingushetia, and his brother, in Moscow in November 2019.
The Investigative Committee has also accused members of the community of involvement in other crimes. Investigators allege that representatives of the group took part in an armed attack on government authorities in Ingushetia in 2004, the bombing of the Nevsky Express train in 2009, and preparations for the March 2024 terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue. Some members are also alleged to have assisted in the December 2024 assassination of Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defence Troops.
In a report on the designation of the Batalkhadzhi followers as a terrorist organisation, the state news agency TASS cited other alleged crimes, including ‘assistance to Ukrainian armed formations’, links to international terrorist organisations and illegal armed groups, the extension of criminal influence to Moscow and other Russian regions, the takeover of several major facilities, including precious metal mining operations, and an attempt to establish an armed formation under the guise of a private military company.
In March 2026, the Second Western District Military Court sentenced 15 defendants in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack case to life imprisonment. Among them were members of the Batalkhadzhi brotherhood, Hussein Medov and Dzhabrail Aushev, who were convicted of aiding terrorists.
In April 2026, Moscow’s Presnensky District Court sentenced Yakub Belkhoroev, a former head of Ingushetia’s Social Insurance Fund and a member of the republic’s parliament, to 10 years in prison in a misappropriation case.
Representatives of the Batalkhadzhi community are known to have ties to Chechen Head Ramzan Kadyrov.
In 2022, Kadyrov published a statement on his Telegram channel in support of the Batalkhadzhi followers, who were then facing searches and arrests. He claimed that some of those detained were innocent.
He attributed the arrests to the activities of ‘internet provocateurs’ who ‘advocate for religion from abroad and attach all sorts of labels to the Belkhoroevs’. According to Kadyrov, ‘the persecution of the Belkhoroev Batalkhadzhi followers not only preempts events, but also looks like a pre-planned online campaign’.
At the time, Kadyrov took issue with the phrase ‘Batalkhadzi terrorist community’, calling it completely absurd.
‘If they are terrorists, then I am terrorist number one’, Kadyrov said.
The FSB has now warned that participation in the activities of the Batalkhadzhi organisation, its financing or other forms of assistance could result in criminal liability, including life imprisonment.
Representatives of the community deny involvement in terrorist or extremist activities.