Lena Patyaeva was detained in Grozny after she held a solo picket with a placard reading "I demand an investigation into the killing of Seda Suleymanova" and the words "Where is Seda?" in Chechen, the human rights project Slovo Zashchite reported, publishing a photo from the scene.
Patyaeva went to the monument to journalists killed for freedom of speech and was taken to police station No. 1 in Grozny less than an hour later. Before the picket, she wrote on the Telegram channel "Where is Seda?" that she had not given up and would remember her friend "no matter how much time passes."
Suleymanova, a native of Chechnya, disappeared three years ago on August 23. Police officers from Chechnya took her from her apartment in St. Petersburg, where she lived with her partner, under the pretext of investigating a case involving the theft of her mother's jewelry. The young woman was brought to Chechnya and handed over to relatives. Several days later, Chechen ombudsman Mansur Soltaev published a photo and video of Suleymanova — the last public evidence that she was alive.
Human rights activists and Patyaeva believe the woman may have been killed in an "honor killing." Patyaeva herself claims her friend told her she faced a threat if she returned to Chechnya. Chechnya's Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into Suleymanova's murder, but according to Patyaeva, it is not actually being investigated.
This was not Patyaeva's first picket: in March 2025, she held the same action at the same location and was also detained. The Telegram channel of the "Where is Seda?" campaign has more than four thousand subscribers.