The Cherkessk City Court sentenced local activist Kase Kik, 45, in absentia to seven years in prison in a case over what investigators described as false information about the Russian army motivated by political hatred.
The ruling became known from a press release posted on the website of the Supreme Court of Karachay-Cherkessia after an inquiry from Mediazona. According to the court, in January 2025 Kik posted a video on a “social network banned in the Russian Federation” containing claims about the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine that the court deemed knowingly false.
In addition to the prison term, the court banned the activist from administering websites for three years.
Who Kase Kik is
Kik had been involved since his student years in the Circassian national youth movement Adyghe-Khase KChR, and from 2008 to 2012 he headed the public movement Circassian Congress of KChR.
Allegations of violence in 2022
In May 2022, the activist said he had been severely beaten at Center E in Cherkessk. According to him, security officers detained him in a café after he asked a DJ to play a Ukrainian song at karaoke. Kik said law enforcement officers were in the venue and began questioning him about his anti-war stance.
He said he was then taken to Center E, where five to seven officers beat him throughout the night to force him to unlock his phone, while an FSB officer present questioned him about ties to the opposition and foreign countries. The next morning, Kik said, he was forced to drink a glass of vodka, taken for a medical examination, and then given seven days of arrest by a court on a petty hooliganism charge.
According to the activist, doctors recorded multiple bruises on his face and neck, as well as a suspected rib fracture. Kik linked the pressure against him to his anti-war position and his Circassian activism. After that incident, he left Russia and now lives in the United States.