A Chechen refugee in Austria and a harsh Kadyrov's critic; a former investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), who collaborated with special services; was assassinated in Vienna on July 4, 2020.

A participant of the second Chechen military campaign, one of the field commanders close to Shamil Basaev and Aslan Maskhadov. Shot dead in Berlin in 2019.

He is a native of Chechnya, who is trying to get refugee status in Germany. In September 2017, he became the first native of the republic to confess to his homosexuality.

Zhalaudi Geriev is a Chechen journalist and a correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot". On September 5, 2016, he was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment on the charge of drug possession. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" recognized Zhalaudi Geriev as a political prisoner.

Magomed "Lord" Daudov is a former Chechen militant who was awarded the title of "Hero of Russia", the chairman of the Chechen parliament under Ramzan Kadyrov.

Tumso Abdurakhmanov is a blogger from Chechnya. After a conflict with Ramzan Kadyrov's relative, he left the republic and went first to Georgia, and then to Poland, where he is trying to get political asylum.

Azerbaijani journalist and rights defender

Ramzan Kadyrov is a Chechen politician, a son of Akhmat Kadyrov, the first president of the Chechen Republic. Since 2011, Ramzan Kadyrov has been the leader of Chechnya.

A Russian MMA fighter, a native of Dagestan. After a battle with Al Iaquinta in April 2018, Khabib Nurmagomedov became the first Russian citizen in UFC with a champion title. On October 6, 2018, he defeated Conor McGregor at UFC 229 tournament in Las Vegas.

On July 9, 2013, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiev, our colleague, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, was killed in the suburb of Makhachkala.

He defends human rights, investigated a mass execution in Chechnya, and made efforts to make socially important problems public.

He made public facts of violations during the pre-election campaign in Armenia.

He has made public an important public issue by publishing his investigation into kidnappings of journalists in Azerbaijan.

Svetlana Anokhina, a journalist from Dagestan, has published a book "There Was Such A City. Makhachkala". In 2015, she continued her publicist project in other books of the series. Ms Anokhina is widely known as the author of the Daptar.ru portal, which posts resonant stories of Caucasian women.

Gerbert Gevorgyan is a member of Yerevan art group “Counterstrike”, which responds to resonant events in the society, both in Armenia and abroad. In 2015, he actively participated in graffiti actions in support of employees of the “Nairit” Factory, Shant Arutyunyan, the organizer of the “Million Mask March”, and other political activists.

Gyunay Ismayilova is one of the most active members of the Azerbaijani NGO "Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety" (IRFS). In 2015, despite the pressure and persecutions, she organized, on the volunteer basis, monitoring of court trials against human rights defenders and journalists, and published information about human rights violation in Azerbaijan.

Elena Zavodskaya, an Abkhazian journalist, has covered the legal proceedings at courts of the Russian Gulgaz Mamedova, from whom her husband’s relatives had taken away took a child, and of Liana Todua, who died because of doctors’ incompetence.

In 2015, the social activist Albert Voskanyan achieved the resumption of monitoring the penitentiary establishments of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). He defended prisoners’ rights and was engaged in activities of social rehabilitation of former prisoners.

Over a long period of time, Dina Alborova, an activist and political analyst, has fought for the rights of non-government organizations (NGOs) of South Ossetia, which were under pressure from the authorities.

Gela Nikolaishvili was nominated for the “Hero of the Caucasus-2015” contest of the “Caucasian Knot” for achieving particular results in helping people.