Up to Seven Years in Colony: Ten of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Voronezh Convicted for Their Faith in God

On November 21, 2025, the Levoberezhniy District Court of Voronezh handed down the region's first verdict against Jehovah's Witnesses on charges of extremism — one of the harshest sentences this year. Yevgeny Sokolov received seven years in a penal colony; Sergey Bayev and Igor Popov were given 6 years suspended and the others — 6 years in colony.

Judge Yevgeniya Laskavaya's decision concluded an almost four-year trial. The convicted men are aged 29 to 61. Many have higher or vocational education: engineers, electromechanics, philologists, welders, and mechanics.

The investigation lasted more than five years. Its first landmark event was a raid by security forces on July 13, 2020. That day, more than 110 searches took place in the region — a record number in the modern history of Jehovah's Witnesses persecution in Russia. Believers ended up in pre-trial detention for nearly five months. Several were subjected to cruel treatment — including Anatoliy Yagupov and Yuriy Galka. The latter had his arms twisted behind his back; a bag placed over his head until he choked; he was also beaten, resulting in a broken rib.

"It feels like no one hears us when we say we are simply practicing our religion as we always have," Yevgeniy Sokolov commented shortly before the verdict. "We are just believers, living by the Bible. The persecutors clearly have their own agenda and keep pushing it." Valeriy Gurskiy expressed a similar thought in his final statement: "The case contains a huge amount of material, dozens of volumes. They could have doubled the volumes... but the result would be the same: there is nothing to accuse us of." Yuriy Galka spoke about the investigation period: "I was well aware of the surveillance. Then and now, I am confident I did not break any laws of the Russian Federation, so I never ran away. I prefer to stay with my fellow believers in difficult times."

Despite the criminal prosecution, participants noted signs of human understanding and goodwill from those around them. Anatoliy Yagupov thanked the judge for her attention to the defendants' health: "You were understanding when one of us couldn't attend court due to illness and even arranged a chair in the courtroom for my fellow believer so he could be comfortable after leaving the hospital." Mikhail Veselov spoke of support from neighbors: "They sincerely worried about me when I was in pre-trial detention. And when I returned, they greeted me joyfully and said, 'Don't leave us again.'" Yevgeny Sokolov noted the investigator's respectful attitude: "He emphasized that we have a good reputation... said he had spoken with other investigators, and all of them noted that we are people from whom one cannot expect deceit. And he openly said: 'I see that this is true.'"

Large-scale prosecutions of Jehovah's Witnesses are not isolated incidents. In various regions of Russia, security forces have initiated cases against entire groups of believers — from eight to 18 people at a time.