Wave of arrests among muftis in Russia

According to pro-government sources, the crackdown on a dozen local Islamic leaders was triggered by statements calling for action against Putin in Moscow. Among those targeted were several associates of Gajnutdin, the head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims, which represents Islam at official events at the Kremlin.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - In Russia, following statements suggesting that Muslims were ready to seize power in the country, arrests of muftis have begun. According to reports from Asainovislam-rm.com, restrictive measures against Muslim clerics have been taken across Russia. News from pro-government Telegram channels and state media indicates the involvement of around a dozen people.

The arrests of Rail-Khazrat Asainov, Mufti of Mordovia, and Visam Ali Bardvil, former Mufti of Karelia, have been officially confirmed. Asainov is suspected of bribery involving the head of the Master’s programme in Islamic Economics and Finance at Mordovia State University. Imam Rashit-Khazrat Abdrashitov, deputy mufti of the republic in south-central Russia, reported that, according to investigators, Asainov allegedly attempted to bribe students with money to pass their exams. According to TASS and records from the Moscow City Court, Bardvil was arrested on 15 May and sentenced to 15 days’ detention for disobeying police orders at Sheremetyevo Airport by refusing to produce his documents.

According to television presenter Ruslan Ostashko, Khenni Mohammed, president of the central religious organisation ‘Community of Muslims of the North-West’, was in turn arrested in St Petersburg. Furthermore, the security forces’ attention has focused on El-Khikh Nidal Awadallah Ahmed, an adviser to the mufti of the southern Saratov region and a teacher at the Sheikh Said madrasa. As reported by some pro-government channels, several representatives of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia and associates of its head, Grand Mufti Ravil Gajnutdin, have also been arrested in Moscow and North Ossetia, whilst five people are under investigation in Mordovia. Security forces are reportedly investigating their links with “foreign entities” and with the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation considered terrorist in Russia.

Gajnutdin has headed the Spiritual Administration of Muslims since its foundation in 1994 and regularly represents Muslims at official events, including those attended by Vladimir Putin. In November 2025, the president awarded him the Order “For Courageous Labour”. Despite this, the organisation’s relations with the authorities have soured in recent years. In 2024, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office served the Administration with a notice regarding a fatwa on polygamy, and in 2025, the Moscow City Court declared the encyclopaedic dictionary “Islam in the North Caucasus”, edited by the Administration’s deputy director, Damir Mukhetdinov, due to articles on “The Wahhabis of the North Caucasus” and “History of Islam in Chechnya”.

The arrests followed a speech by Ruslan Kutaev, a former Chechen deputy prime minister in exile, who had claimed that Muslims living in Moscow were ready to seize power when the time was right. “At the appointed hour, when action is needed in Russia, we will act... Who supports us? People who, if necessary, will tear off heads, blow up heads and take to the barricades... We will establish a government that suits us,” he had declared in April. Kutaev had claimed that Russia was in “chaos”, that no one “trusted the authorities” and that “everyone knew that Putin had lost his war”.

Over the past year, hostilities by various ultra-nationalist groups such as the “Russian Community” and others towards people of Caucasian ethnicity and the Islamic faith have also intensified. Now the conflict is becoming a cause for concern at an institutional level too, given the increasingly uncertain state of the economy and the military strategy of Putin’s Russia.