Courts handed at least 3 Jehovah’s Witnesses long jail terms for exercising freedom of religion since September. A Samara court jailed Samvel Babayan for 7 years. A Saransk court jailed Ivan Neverov for 7 years, Mikhail Shevchuk for 6 years 6 months. Neither the court nor the Prosecutor’s Office would explain the long jail terms or who Neverov and Shevchuk might have harmed. Interior Ministry officials rescinded Irina Khvostova’s citizenship. Within minutes of release from prison on 13 October, police took Armenian citizen Vardan Zakaryan to prepare his expulsion.

In a typical recent case, a court in Saransk, capital of the Republic of Mordoviya, handed two Jehovah’s Witnesses long prison sentences on 19 September for exercising their freedom of religion or belief. It jailed 39-year-old Ivan Neverov for 7 years and 38-year-old Mikhail Shevchuk for 6 years and 6 months. The court convicted them on charges of “Organisation of the activities of a banned extremist organisation”. Prosecutors had requested 9 years’ imprisonment for Neverov, and 8 years for Shevchuk.

The Judge also handed the two men post-prison restrictions on freedom and bans on “activities related to leadership and participation in the work of public and religious organisations”

Investigators accused the two men of “convening meetings, organising religious speeches and services at these meetings, preaching and missionary activity in the city of Saransk, and distributing literature with extremist content” .

A representative of Saransk’s Proletarian District Court refused to answer Forum 18’s questions as to why the Judge had handed down such long jail sentences and who had been harmed by Neverov and Shevchuk’s actions. The court representative said only that answers “cannot be given, since, according to the norms of current procedural legislation, state civil servants of the court are not entitled to give explanations or comment on issued judicial decisions” (

The Republic of Mordoviya’s Prosecutor’s Office did not respond to Forum 18’s questions as to why prosecutors had sought such long jail sentences and why they considered Neverov and Shevchuk dangerous

Meanwhile, courts are known to have convicted at least four Jehovah’s Witnesses in October. A court in Samara jailed 53-year-old fellow Jehovah’s Witness Samvel Babayan on 17 October for 7 years on the same charges as Neverov and Shevchuk. In two criminal cases, courts handed down suspended sentences. In the fourth case, a court handed down a large fine

Raids on Jehovah’s Witness homes have continued throughout 2025. These are usually led by the Investigative Committee or the Federal Security Service (FSB) – the agencies usually responsible for investigations of Jehovah’s Witnesses for “continuing the activities of a banned extremist organisation”. Such raids often involve armed troops of the National Guard (Rosgvardiya).

The FSB and Investigative Committee have carried out raids and searches of at least 37 households in five regions in September and October. In all, officials have launched raids and related prosecutions in 74 out of Russia’s 83 federal subjects.

(Russian officials have launched similar raids and related prosecutions in Crimea and Sevastopol, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. They have also launched a criminal case against an individual in the occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk.)

The consequences of prosecution can go beyond imprisonment or restrictions. At least four Jehovah’s Witnesses who became Russian citizens by naturalisation have had their citizenship revoked because of their criminal convictions. Three of them were subsequently expelled from Russia. Most recently, in June 2025, Interior Ministry officials in Magadan Region rescinded the citizenship of Irina Khvostova, who was born in Ukraine and moved to Russia in 2015. She has not had to leave the country because she is still serving the probation imposed with her suspended sentence

Jehovah’s Witnesses with foreign citizenship, who have lived legally in Russia for decades, may be subject to deportation upon completion of their sentences. On 13 October 2025, when Armenian citizen Vardan Zakaryan was released from a prison colony in Tver Region, a police officer immediately took him to a deportation centre in preparation for his removal from the country