A native of North Ossetia has been accused of teaching terrorism after returning from Syria.

A military court in Rostov-on-Don is hearing the case of Olesya Bichenova, a native of North Ossetia, who left for Syria with her husband and subsequently spent several years in a refugee camp there.

As reported by the Caucasian Knot, back in 2018, the FSB placed Olesya Bichenova, then 28, on its wanted list on suspicion of involvement with militants in Syria. The security service claimed that Bichenova had voluntarily joined a terrorist organization and was actively participating in the fighting.

The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don is hearing the criminal case of 36-year-old Olesya Bichenova, a native of North Ossetia who returned to Russia from St. Petersburg after spending several years in the Al-Hol refugee camp. She is charged with teaching terrorism, Mediazona reported (included in the foreign agent registry).

In court, Olesya Bichenova's mother testified that after finishing school, she left North Ossetia for Moscow, found work there, and later converted to Islam. According to her mother, Olesya first married a native of Dagestan in Moscow but later divorced him. She went to Syria to join her second husband, whom her mother-in-law described to investigators as an ISIS* militant.

Investigators claim that in February 2023, Bichenova "underwent training in the use of firearms," ​​including a pistol and an assault rifle. This version contradicts information Bichenova herself previously told journalists: by November 2022, she had been living with her daughter in the Syrian refugee camp "Al-Hol" for over four years.

According to Bichenova, at the age of 24, she moved to Syria to live with Samat Baidzhanov, an ethnic Kazakh native of Orenburg, whom she met online. After marrying him, she gave birth to a daughter.

The couple lived in ISIS* territory, in Raqqa, but Bichenova insists that neither of them participated in the fighting. According to her, "her husband led an ordinary life and had no intention of fighting anyone"; he came under fire and was seriously wounded, so he "wasn't called up for war, but he couldn't really work either," according to her story in a Lenta.ru publication dated November 1, 2022.

The "Caucasian Knot" publishes news about the impact of the war in the Middle East on the situation in the Caucasus regions on its thematic pages "Syria in Fire" and ""The Caucasus in the Caliphate's Crosshairs." The "Directory" section of the "Caucasian Knot" has published the article "Natives of the Caucasus in the Ranks of ISIS*".

* is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.

** The activities of Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) are banned in Russia.