Name: Khamatshin Maksim Rinatovich
Date of Birth: June 20, 1996
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1)
Time spent in prison: 1 day in a pre-trial detention
Current restrictions: detention center
Sentence: imprisonment for a term of 6 years in a general regime penal colony
Currently held in: Detention Center No.3 for Chelyabinsk Region
Address for correspondence: Khamatshin Maksim Rinatovich, born 1996, Detention Center No.3 for Chelyabinsk Region, Ul. Artilleriyskaya, 66 A, Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk Region, 456205

Letters of support can be sent by regular mail or through the «zonatelecom».

Note: discussing topics related to criminal prosecution is not allowed in letters; languages other than Russian will not pass.

Biography

Maksim Khamatshin, a young family man and electrician, became a victim of criminal prosecution for his faith in the summer of 2023.

Maksim was born in June 1996 in Siberia, in the city of Biryusinsk (Irkutsk region), in the family of a physician and a railway worker. As a child, he loved to play football. For a long time he was engaged in skiing, was fond of collecting postage stamps.

After school, Maksim graduated from the Kansk Polytechnic College and received a specialty as an adjuster of instrumentation and automation. He worked at a brick factory. Recently, he has been working as an electrician as a self-employed.

The Bible norms instilled by his mother touched Maksim's heart, and in his teenage years he began to study the Bible deeply on his own. "It was bitter for me to see people suffer," Maksim recalls. "But I learned from the Bible how God will make people's lives easier."

Peaceful views prompted Maksim to undergo alternative civilian service (ACS) instead of military service—he worked as an orderly in the operating unit of the Chelyabinsk Regional Hospital from 2017 to 2019.

Here, in Chelyabinsk, Maksim met his future wife, Adelina, and in August 2019 they got married. His wife shares his views on life. She has been familiar with Bible teachings since childhood. Adelina works as a pharmacist. The couple has many common hobbies: they love to spend time with friends, play board games, have picnics in nature, sing songs. Maksim also still goes in for sports, loves football, volleyball, skiing, and is also fond of studying construction technologies.

The criminal prosecution affected both spouses—they no longer feel safe in their own apartment. Parents and other relatives consider the persecution unfair. Maksim's mother's chronic illness worsened due to her worries.

Maksim and Adelina do not lose heart: "We felt the great support and love of our friends."

Case History

In September 2022, Maksim Khamatshin’s house was searched as part of the case of his fellow believer Yevgeniy Bushev. In June 2023, Maksim himself became a defendant in a criminal case for believing in God. A month later, investigator Chepenko, who has at least a dozen criminal cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Chelyabinsk, placed Khamatshin under his recognizance agreement. At the end of the year, the believer was included in the Rosfinmonitoring list. In May 2024, the criminal case went to court. The charge is based on video and audio recordings of meetings of the FSB informant with Jehovah’s Witnesses. The prosecutor asked the court to send Khamatshin to a colony for 7 years. In April 2025, the sentence was passed—6 years in a penal colony.
Back to top