MOSCOW - In a suburban Moscow home on Wednesday, a few sleepy Chechen men in their twenties nervously mill about and one by one introduce themselves to visiting journalists.
There are six gay Chechen men hiding in the house because they fear that their lives, and their relatives, could be in danger.
They fled Russia's Republic of Chechnya as independent media reported a crackdown on gay men involving hundreds of abductions, torture, and at least three murders.
"At first, I thought that all was as usual, the same as it had happened to me in 2016," says one man living at the house under the false name Ilya to protect his identity. "I had got acquainted with a man, through a social network, went to meet him, and he turned out to be a set-up. So three men beat me and the fourth videotaped it. They broke my jaw and I was beaten blue."
Ilya says when that happened a year ago, the men blackmailed him for about $3,500. But this year, he says, the threats and disappearances in Chechnya's underground gay community began adding up quickly.
"It all started in the middle of March. Everybody wrote that the gays were being hunted in Grozny. I did not pay much attention," Ilya said. "I had experienced it before and thought that the same thing was going on. I did not think that it was on such a mass level. If they caught one man, they found two or three [more] from his [phone] contacts. If they caught them, then another nine were caught. That's how it was happening."
Russian authorities say there is no evidence that gay men in Russia's conservative republic of Chechnya are facing a wave of persecution, as reported by independent Russian media. Hundreds of gay Chechen men have reportedly fled the region amid allegations of abduction, torture and murder being covered up.
Ilya says he just missed police when they came to his family's house in Grozny, Chechnya's capital.
"They told my mother that their son was gay, they needed either to catch him or to kill him," said Ilya. "They gave her all the details of what they were going to do to me. My mother called me, she cried and said that she would never believe that I was gay. She was so worried and to calm her down I told her that it was not so. I shook when I told her that."
When a friend's mother called him to say her son had gone missing, Ilya decided he had to leave Chechnya.
"I have heard also that the guys that had been caught were given back to their parents. The parents were told: 'Either you'll kill him or we'll kill him.' It is called to wash the disgrace away with the blood. The disgrace that such a man brought into his family."
The men take sedatives to calm fears that Chechen authorities, or their own relatives, could find them.
Rights activists say discrimination and abuse is common in Chechnya's conservative, religious culture, where being openly gay is not accepted.
"I wish I could forget it as soon as possible," says another gay Chechen hiding at the house who gives his name as Timur. "It won't be forgotten here, even in Moscow. There is no way back to Chechnya, where everyone would point fingers at me."
Chechen authorities not only deny the allegations, but also deny the very existence of gay Chechens.
Chechnya's human rights council member Kheda Saratova told Russian radio "any person who respects our traditions and culture will hunt down this kind of person without any help from authorities," reported newspaper.
"I am a gay person, I know other gay men, who know other gay men so there are many of us in Chechnya," Ilya said. "The gay men in Chechnya are being caught, there is a prison in the city of Argun, as friends tell. Some were released and they escaped here. They were told that if they left Chechnya, [authorities] would harm or kill their relatives."
Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, in a meeting Wednesday at the Kremlin with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, called the allegations and reports a provocation.
"Some 'good people,' in quotes, write to us that in our republic, it is not quite decent to talk about it, people are being detained, killed, and even one family name was mentioned," Kadyrov said. "Someone said he had been killed, but he is at home."
Putin apparently accepted the explanation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there's no reason not to believe Kadyrov. He echoed the words of Russia's Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova, who said there was no evidence that gay Chechens were being abused and no reported abductions.
Activists helping the men escape say authorities' statements give gay Chechens good reason not to trust them.