Mass Searches in Khakassia and Krasnoyarsk Territory. Three Believers Sent to Pretrial Detention Center

The homes of about 25 families of Jehovah's Witnesses in the villages of Mayna and Cheremushki (Khakassia) were searched, and at least 45 people were interrogated. Three believers — Viktor Timoshchenko, Aleksandr Gorev and Yevgeniy Bagin — were taken into custody. Investigative measures initiated by the FSB of Russia have been carried out since September 23, 2025.

Mayna and Cheremushki are urban settlements with a total population of about 12,000 people, located on the banks of the Yenisei, not far from the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. During the searches, which began at 6 a.m., phones and electronic devices were confiscated from believers. Jehovah's Witnesses were interrogated in Sayanogorsk — those from Mayna during the day, and those from Cheremushki close to midnight. Timoshchenko, Gorev and Bagin were taken 100 kilometers from home to Abakan, the capital of Khakassia. According to their relatives, they were charged with organizing religious meetings and sent to a pretrial detention center by a court ruling.

The total number of searches that have taken place since the liquidation of legal entities of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017 has far exceeded 2000, but mass searches of such a scale are not carried out that often. Earlier large-scale raids (some of them were called "Armageddon", "Judgment Day") took place in the Jewish Autonomous Region, Crimea, Voronezh and Bryansk Regions and in the Altai Territory.