In Volgograd, Nikita Zhuravel was detained, suspected of burning a Koran on camera near a mosque on Povorinskaya Street. This was reported by the Investigative Committee.
The video, because of which a case was opened on insulting the feelings of believers (Part 2 of Article 148 of the Criminal Code), was filmed «no later than May 19,» the department claims. We are talking about an 11-second video, the author of which holds an open Quran in his hand with burning pages, separately focusing on the cover and the mosque in the background.
Nikita Zhuravel, according to his profile on a dating site, is 19 years old. He was born in Sevastopol and studied at the Volgograd Social and Pedagogical University (VGSPU), adds V1.ru.
In the video of the detention, which was distributed by the FSB, a student is stopped by two police officers while he is riding a bicycle with a backpack of the Samokat delivery service. A minibus pulls up shortly there; enforcers in camouflage and helmets run out of it, dragging the courier inside, leaving his bike on the road.
After gluing, there are frames with a student lying face down on the floor. The courier initially connects the detention with the fact that he «filmed the fighter jets.» In response, the voice-over calls the date of the alleged burning of the Koran, May 4, and demands to «step by step» to tell «how he came to this.» “People wrote to me in the telegram <…> [from] telegram channel <…> from Ukraine <…> [They] just run a telegram channel and want to help their country <…> They offered me some money,” the student answers the security officer’s questions.
Soon, in a new passage, the student, in a chiseled tone, says to the camera that he “acquired the Koran on the instructions of the SBU and burned it on May 4, 2023”, “sent the video materials to the SBU employees”, and “for this work [he] should have been paid 10 thousand rubles” . At the same time, Zhuravel's face is blurred, and it is impossible to say for sure whether he reads the text prepared in advance. In one place, the detainee stumbles.
The Investigative Committee in its press release notes, without citing specific names, that Zhuravel's video «was published in public access on an Internet portal controlled by the CIPSO of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.» On May 21, the department added that, by decision of their chairman Alexander Bastrykin, the investigation of the case would be transferred from the department of the Investigative Committee for the Volgograd region to the department for Chechnya.
The detention of the courier, who admitted his guilt on camera, also commented on the Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuychenko. He suggested that after the verdict, the Volgograd citizen be sent «to serve his sentence in one of the correctional institutions located in the region with a predominantly Muslim population.»
The first mention of the Volgograd video with the Koran appeared on May 19, including in the telegram channel Morning Dagestan”, which widely covered the protests in the republic due to mobilization in the fall of 2022. In April, «Morning of Dagestan» was also one of the first to post a tiktok with the burning of the Koran in Moscow, when the original video had less than a thousand views.
Updated at 19:47. Comment by Minister Chuichenko added.