Killing of Elza Kungayeva

On the night of March 26–27, 2000, Russian Army Colonel Yuri Budanov, commander of division 13206, arrived by armored personnel carrier at the village of Tangi-Chu in the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya with three subordinate servicemen. On Budanov's orders, the soldiers forcibly took 18-year-old Elza Kungayeva from her family's home on Zarechni Lane and drove her to the division's encampment. According to the account given by her father, Visa Kungayev, armed soldiers entered the house at night; when a younger daughter was initially brought out and screamed, Budanov reportedly told the soldiers to release her and take Elza instead. Kungayev's brother, a neighbor, identified the APC by its number, 391.

At approximately 3 a.m., Budanov strangled Kungayeva in a trailer described as his quarters. On his orders, three soldiers then buried her body in a forested area near the encampment; it was exhumed around 10 a.m. on March 28, 2000. A forensic medical report obtained by Human Rights Watch, citing a military procurator's findings, concluded Kungayeva had been beaten with a hard object and strangled, noting injuries to her face, neck, right eye, and left breast inflicted roughly an hour before her death.

Russian military authorities publicly acknowledged the killing, took Budanov into custody, and returned Kungayeva's body to her family on March 28, 2000. A Major-General told villagers that Budanov had raped and strangled her and promised swift justice. Senior military officials attended her funeral on March 29, 2000, and reportedly paid funeral costs and expressed sympathy to the family. Budanov later told the court he believed Kungayeva was a Chechen sniper and that he acted in a fit of rage while interrogating her.

The family's initial confidence in the investigation waned; by October 2000, Kungayev learned charges against Budanov would not include rape, a decision he said removed "the most important charge" given the significance attached to rape within Chechen social norms described in the source material. The Rostov District Military Court began Budanov's trial on February 28, 2001. He was ultimately convicted of kidnapping, murder, and abuse of power, sentenced to 10 years in prison, and stripped of his military rank and Order of Courage. In January 2009, Budanov was released early, a move that drew criticism from human rights activists.

The case had further violent aftermath. On January 19, 2009, the Kungayev family's attorney, Stanislav Markelov, was shot and killed leaving a Moscow press conference at which he had announced plans to appeal Budanov's early release; freelance journalist Anastasia Baburova was killed alongside him, in a case investigators linked to Markelov's prosecutions of neo-Nazis. On June 10, 2011, Budanov himself was shot dead in central Moscow. On May 7, 2013, Yusup Temerkhanov was convicted by jury of Budanov's murder and sentenced to 15 years; investigators said his motive was revenge for his father's death during the Second Chechen War. Temerkhanov denied involvement and died in a Siberian penal colony in August 2018.