Armenian businessman Areg Shchepikhin, who was kidnapped at a Moscow railway station on Tuesday evening and crammed into the trunk of a car, has been released, Baza and 112 Telegram channels reported.

According to Baza, members of the Chechen security forces released Shchepikhin around midnight.

As per VCHK-OGPU Telegram channel, he was released in Vnukovo District of Moscow, “on instructions from the Kremlin and the First Deputy Director of the FSB, Sergey Korolev.” There is no independent confirmation of this information.

Baza claims that after the kidnapping, Areg Shchepikhin was held in a café. He was beaten and forced to apologize on video for the recordings that insulted Chechens and Muslims. Shchepikhin is now in a Moscow hostel, Baza’s sources say.

Also, the Baza Telegram channel posted a video in which Shchepikhin spoke about the kidnapping. “To put it bluntly, they kidnapped me and took me out of the city. They didn’t torture me much, they interrogated me more. I didn’t like that they wanted to know the addresses of my wife and parents,” he said in the recording.

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has not yet commented on the information about the release of Areg Shchepikhin. The press service of the ministry only reported that on Tuesday evening, Moscow police detained "six participants in the events that caused public protests at the Yaroslavsky railway station [in Moscow]." They were taken to the police precinct of this railway station.

The investigation materials were transferred to the investigative agencies.