Grozny’s Akhmatovsky District Court fined St. Petersburg resident Lena Patyayeva 150,000 rubles for holding a solo picket on the third anniversary of the disappearance of her friend Seda Suleimanova, a Chechen woman, according to a post on Chechnya’s Supreme Court website.
The post does not identify the person fined, but Mediazona reported that it was Patyayeva.
The court found her guilty of a repeat violation of protest laws under Article 20.2, Part 8 of Russia’s Code of Administrative Offenses. In November 2025, Patyayeva was sentenced to nine days in jail under the same provision for a solo picket.
Lena Patyayeva held a solo picket in Grozny on August 23, 2026. She stood at a monument to fallen journalists, holding a sign that read “I demand an investigation into the murder of Seda Suleimanova” and, in Chechen, “Where is Seda?” Patyayeva was detained shortly afterward.
Seda Suleimanova fled her relatives in 2022 because they were planning to force her into marriage. She lived in St. Petersburg. In August 2023, police officers came to her apartment and told her she was suspected of stealing jewelry worth 150,000 rubles, following a complaint from her mother. They detained her, took her back to Chechnya against her will, and handed her over to her relatives. A few days later, Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, Mansur Soltayev, published a photograph and a video of Suleimanova. She has not been seen since.
In February 2024, the SK SOS project reported that Suleimanova might have been killed by her relatives. Shortly after a public campaign demanding that she be found, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a murder investigation. In May 2025, authorities declared Suleimanova a missing person and launched a search for her.
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