At Least 70 People Dead During FSB Detentions in Russia and Occupied Territories of Ukraine Since 2022
Of these, 28 were considered as Ukrainian agents by the security service
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Since the start of the war against Ukraine, FSB officers have killed at least 65 people during detentions in Russia and 4 in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast; according to the security service itself, one more person blew himself up with his own bomb during a detention near Samara.
This follows from IStories’ calculations based on reports from the FSB, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK), the Investigative Committee, state news agencies, and media close to law enforcement. This count does not include cases of people killed during detentions by other security agencies or reports of the “elimination” of Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in Russia’s frontline oblasts, as the FSB claims that in all such cases involving sabotage and reconnaissance groups near the border, those killed were Ukrainian military personnel.
At least 44 of those killed during detentions since the start of the war were Russian citizens. Nine people were identified in law enforcement press releases as natives of Central Asian countries, without specifying their citizenship. At least two of those killed were citizens of Kazakhstan, and one each of Ukraine and Belarus.
In 28 cases, the FSB suspected those killed of preparing attacks on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence services or volunteer units within the AFU. One of them was the administrator of the Telegram chat Melitopol — tse Ukraina and an employee of the local media outlet RIA Melitopol, accused of “psychological influence” on residents of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Twenty-seven people were suspected of ties to the Islamic State, four of whom were considered members of the Central Asian wing of ISIS, Islamic State Khorasan Province. Eleven were killed after carrying out terrorist attacks in Dagestan and Ingushetia in 2024 during shootouts. Fourteen people were suspected by the FSB of involvement in Islamist terrorist organizations, but the agency did not specify the names of these groups.
Another person, a 29-year-old resident of Khasavyurt Malik Muslimkhanov , was killed during a search in a drug trafficking case, according to the Telegram channel Mash.
Most often, suspects were killed during detention in the North Caucasus — 12 each in Dagestan and Ingushetia, and nine in Kabardino-Balkaria. Among those shot during detentions in the Caucasus were ISIS pledges the sons of Magomed Omarov, head of Sergokalinsky District in Dagestan, Osman and Adil, as well as his nephew Abdusamad Amadziev, MMA fighter Gadzhi Murad Kagirov and another militant. Security forces shot them immediately after they carried out terrorist attacks in Makhachkala and Derbent in June 2024. Also, in March 2024, six ISIS members were shot in Ingushetia, who were wanted in connection with the murder of three law enforcement officers and an attack on a traffic police post.
During this period, FSB officers also killed six people in Moscow and Moscow Oblast, four each in Kaluga Oblast, Stavropol Krai, and the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
During the full-scale war, the number of people killed during detentions in FSB statistics did not increase compared to the prewar period.
Judging by FSB and NAK press releases, from 2018 to 2021 at least 74 people were killed in Russia during counterterrorism operations and attempted detentions, with one more killed in Crimea. The vast majority, 54 people, were killed during CTOs in the North Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia). Among those shot dead was the head of the North Caucasus wing of the Islamic State, Aslan Byutukaev, and 15 members of his gang.
If during the war more than a third of FSB killings during detentions involved people suspected of ties to Ukrainian intelligence, in the prewar period, almost all such cases involved the detention of alleged or known Islamists.
Thirty-five of those killed were suspected of ties to ISIS, 27 of involvement in so-called bandit formations in the North Caucasus, and another 11 appeared in FSB reports as Islamists without specifying a group.
On the eve of Security Service Workers’ Day in December 2019, in return fire Evgeny Manyurov was killed, who shot an FSB officer with a carbine and wounded several others at Lubyanka. In May 2021 in Crimea, FSB officers killed a construction worker from Uzbekistan, Naib Rakhimov. The security service claimed he offered armed resistance to detention. Rakhimov was suspected of recruiting people into the organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Russian authorities consider terrorist. Two years later, the man was posthumously found guilty of preparing a terrorist attack and attacking law enforcement officers.
Identities of the killed
In 43 cases of those killed during detentions since 2022, nothing is known — the FSB does not name them and hides their faces in videos. In some cases, the names of the dead are revealed by their relatives and acquaintances.
In November 2022, FSB officers in Voronezh killed three Russians, suspecting them of working for Ukraine. As evidence, they showed homemade explosive devices, a Makarov pistol, optical sights, and radios. Also visible in the footage are a flag with a logo from the popular video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a British flag, and a notebook labeled “Personnel Record of the ‘Freedom’ Group” (the name of a group in the computer game). On the air of Voronezh Vesti, this was presented as evidence of their work for Ukraine.
As acquaintances of the Voronezh residents told the Moscow Times, the dead turned out to be a fan of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and airsofter Vladimir Kotovsky and a gamer under the pseudonym Stalker Fosgen. The name of the third victim was not reported.
On July 4, 2023, FSB officers shot dead in Tyumen Oblast 38-year-old taxi driver Andrey Lokhmanov. His name became known only after Lokhmanov’s girlfriend contacted the newsroom of the regional outlet 72.ru. According to the FSB, Lokhmanov was a “Ukrainian nationalist” and tried to blow up a gas distribution hub. In video of the aftermath of the detention, security forces showed Lokhmanov’s bullet-riddled car. The security service claims the Tyumen resident engaged in a shootout and “used an explosive device.” However, residents of the village of Kukushki, where the man was killed, said they did not hear any gunfire that day. Lokhmanov’s girlfriend said he worked part-time at a workwear store and, being ethnically Ukrainian, wanted to go fight for Russia.
Lokhmanov was registered with Tyumen law enforcement as an “extremist,” according to leaked police records. In 2014, he was prosecuted for posting the video “The Last Interview of the Primorsky Partisans” calling for armed struggle against the Russian authorities, which the court recognized as extremist.
In August 2022, the security service reported the killing of two Russians in Volgograd Oblast, who allegedly tried to blow up a gas pipeline. Initially, law enforcement claimed the men were members of the organization Restrukt of neo-Nazi Maxim Tesak Martynkevich. They were allegedly acting on the orders of Tesak’s friend, Russian neo-Nazi Andrey Ded Chuenkov, who had moved to Ukraine, and Luhansk neo-Nazi, Azov Regiment veteran Yuri Taksist Ionov. But Ionov had already died defending Mariupol.
Six months later, the FSB named the surnames of the dead — Keiner and Ushkov — and stated that the terrorist attack was actually organized by Denis Kapustin, founder of the Russian Volunteer Corps, and that the victims were supporters of “far-right organizations” White Rex and Thor Steiner (in reality, such organizations do not exist; these are names of clothing brands popular among the far right. The White Rex brand was launched by Kapustin himself).
In the fall of 2022 in Kabardino-Balkaria, security forces killed two local residents, Asker Karmokov and Yusup Kudaev. Their names became known during the trial of Salikh Osmanov, who was detained at the same time as an alleged accomplice of the dead. According to investigators, the men discussed “their radical Islamist views and negative attitude” toward the war in Ukraine in a Viber messenger chat and allegedly planned to carry out sabotage “to undermine the economic security and defense capability of the Russian Federation.” Osmanov’s lawyers point out that the phone on which the Viber correspondence was found had been sold to the man by a former employee of the local FSKN office, who later testified in the case.
In November 2023, the FSB reported the killing in Ingushetia of Khizir Ganiyev. He was suspected of aiding Islamic State militants, who were later also killed. The local publication Fortanga describes Ganiyev as “a volunteer and participant in republican charity projects.”
In spring 2024, FSB officers shot dead in Karelia 49-year-old fitness trainer from Belarus Nikolai Alekseev. He was suspected of being a member of the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment (a Belarusian formation within the AFU) and planning to blow up an administrative building in the Karelian district center of Olonets, with a population of about 7,500.
Alekseev, a father of many children and participant in the 2020 Belarus protests, moved with his family to Olonets to his father-in-law after he and his wife began to be prosecuted at home for insulting Alexander Lukashenko. Video of his detention and killing was filmed, according to the description from the Telegram channel Baza, in an abandoned cowshed 8 km from Olonets. Next to the right hand of the dead man, as in many other FSB videos, a Makarov pistol lies.
Also in spring 2024, during an FSB detention in Samara, died 30-year-old antiwar activist, winner of the regional Young Entrepreneur of Russia competition and founder of an eco-friendly goods store Andrey Zhivakin. The FSB claims he was a member of the Russian Volunteer Corps and allegedly planned to blow up a humanitarian aid collection point, but during the detention he blew himself up with his own bomb. In the FSB video you can hear a special forces officer order the man to drop what he is holding, followed by an explosion. The suspect himself is not visible in the footage.
In early March 2024, immediately after a warning from the US about possible terrorist attacks in Moscow and two weeks before the attack at Crocus City Hall, FSB officers killed in Kaluga Oblast citizens of Kazakhstan, 35-year-old welder Sabit Ashiraliyev and 32-year-old entrepreneur Zhanibek Taskulayev, allegedly suspected of preparing a terrorist attack at a Moscow synagogue on behalf of Islamic State Khorasan Province (this group would later claim responsibility for the Crocus City Hall attack).
In May of the same year, FSB officers shot dead in Leningrad Oblast 48-year-old auto mechanic Nikolai Surnov. After the start of the war, he left for Lithuania but returned in March 2024. Law enforcement claims Surnov was allegedly preparing a series of terrorist attacks in the Moscow suburbs and St. Petersburg on orders from the AFU. Initially, he was wanted in connection with the Crocus attack case.
In reality, the number of people killed during FSB operations since 2022 may be higher — we only see cases that the security service reports publicly. In 2024, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, for the only time during the war, reported on the “neutralization of bandits” for the year. According to him, as a result of “coordinated actions of law enforcement agencies,” 38 people were killed. However, in 2024, the FSB publicly reported the “elimination” of only 28 people. It is likely that Bortnikov’s figure includes people also killed by officers of the Interior Ministry, the Federal Penitentiary Service, and other agencies.
For example, Federal Penitentiary Service special forces, during the storming, killed five inmates who had taken hostages on behalf of ISIS at Rostov-on-Don’s SIZO-1 on June 16, 2024, and shot dead four militants who took hostages at IK-19 in Volgograd Oblast on August 23, 2024. On January 27, 2024, 37-year-old Bashkortostan resident Rifat Dautov was detained by police in connection with the Baymak protest case and died several hours later from massive internal bleeding.
Featuring Yanina Sorokina, IStories