In the summer of 2017, Zelim Bakaev flew home to his native Chechnya from Moscow, where he was building a career as a pop singer and model. Bakaev, according to his friends, had avoided returning to Chechnya for months as dozens of gay men — including his own acquaintances — were ensnared in what human rights groups would later describe as a bloody crackdown on LGBT people in the pocket-sized republic in southern Russia.