The Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk on October 2 ordered Elena Matushevskaya, a producer of educational projects, held in pretrial detention until November 29. She is accused of financing extremist activity under Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Russian Criminal Code.

According to investigators, Matushevskaya transferred money to the Anti-Corruption Foundation seven times, 500 rubles each, for a total of 3,500 rubles. The criminal case was opened on September 29, and she was detained in Krasnoyarsk on October 1 and taken to Tomsk. In recent years Matushevskaya lived in Serbia and had come to Russia on business. Her defense intends to appeal the arrest, OVD-Info reported.

The detentions and sentences came in the same week that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 30 that the Russian authorities "categorically deny" the existence of political prisoners in the country.

On September 28, the Sovetsky District Court of Chelyabinsk sentenced 58-year-old Elena Mironova to four years in a penal colony. She was taken into custody in the courtroom after the verdict was announced.

Mironova was found guilty of participating in the activities of an extremist organization and of financing extremism. Prosecutors said she took part in the activities of the banned Jehovah's Witnesses organization and provided her apartment for meetings. The Jehovah's Witnesses themselves say the gatherings were meetings of believers discussing the Bible. The verdict has not yet entered into force, according to Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

On September 29, the Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Yegor Gulyaev to six years in a general-regime penal colony in a case over the dissemination of "knowingly false information" about the Russian army.

The case involved three reposts in 2022 of publications by the Ukrainian agency UNIAN on VKontakte. The prosecution had sought 12 years. The court also barred Gulyaev from administering websites and posting materials online for four years. Mediazona reported the details of the proceedings.

On September 29, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court sentenced Ivan Shadrin to ten years in prison in a case over an attempt to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, which the Russian authorities have designated a terrorist organization.

Shadrin is to serve the first three years in prison and the remaining seven in a strict-regime penal colony. He was detained on March 2, 2025, at Sheremetyevo Airport; he was 18 at the time. Mediazona reported this, citing Memorial.

On September 30, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Igor Karlov of Krasnodar to 18 years in a strict-regime penal colony and a fine of 470,000 rubles.

Karlov was charged under several articles, including high treason, the dissemination of "fakes" about the army, justification of terrorism, and calls for extremist activity and for activity against the security of the state. According to the prosecution, in 2022 he contacted a Ukrainian citizen and agreed to administer a Ukrainian Telegram channel. RAPSI reported the court's position.

A court created by the Russian authorities in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region sentenced a resident of Tokmak to 14 years in a general-regime penal colony under the article on high treason.

In the official statement the woman is identified as "K.," born in 1961. The Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial project matched these details with the file of Svetlana Kramchanina: the year of birth, place of residence and charge coincide. This is the source's matching, not a name officially disclosed by the court.

According to investigators, between January and April 2024 the woman transferred money 15 times to Ukrainian bank cards used to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The total came to 1,250 hryvnias, about 2,980 rubles at the conversion cited by the source. Along with the 14-year sentence, she was given one year of restricted freedom, according to Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial.

On September 26 it became known why the director and poet Zhenya Berkovich received another 15 days in a punishment cell at the Kostroma IK-3 "Pribrezhny" colony.

In a letter to her mother, Berkovich said the punishment was linked to an attempt to "bring three candies to work" and to the fact that, on entering an office, she did not, according to the administration, introduce herself in full. She had already spent seven days in the punishment cell, and ten days after her release she received a new penalty. Berkovich also wrote about the cold and damp in the isolation unit and about the fact that no psychiatrist visits her. Meduza quoted the letter.

Berkovich is serving her sentence in the case over the play "Finist, the Brave Falcon."

Since September 28, mathematician Azat Miftakhov has been in the punishment cell of the "Polyarnaya Sova" colony. The term of the penalty is 15 days. According to Miftakhov himself, the formal grounds were that he "did not wipe the dust."

Miftakhov believes the penalty may be linked to his defense's legal disputes with the colony. This is the prisoner's own account; there is no public confirmation of a causal link. SOTAvision reported the new punishment cell term.

On October 2 it became known that RusNews journalist Roman Ivanov had received a new penalty. He was sent to a punishment cell for 14 days. The reason for the penalty was not publicly stated.

According to his lawyer, after the punishment cell Ivanov is to be transferred to strict conditions of detention. He is held in IK-6 in Kolomna and is serving a seven-year sentence in a case over three publications classified as the dissemination of "fakes" about the Russian army. Mediazona reported this on October 2.

The arrest of political analyst Aleksandr Kynev took place on September 25: he was sent to pretrial detention on charges of attempted large-scale drug trafficking. Kynev does not admit guilt.

On September 28, the Slovo Zashchite project reported that Kynev was in the hospital at the "Matrosskaya Tishina" detention center with two fractures of the tibia. On September 29, political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann said that during his detention Kynev was tortured with electric current and was demanded to confess to high treason. She did not say where she got this information.

Defense lawyer Mikhail Biryukov told the outlet Ekho that the defense has no documents confirming Schulmann's words. At the same time, he confirmed Kynev's hospitalization after a beating and said that materials concerning unidentified persons who inflicted bodily injuries on him had been separated into a separate proceeding. Meduza cited both positions.

On October 1 it became known what condition 58-year-old Tatyana Begey is in at the Simferopol pretrial detention center SIZO-1. In a letter from the facility she said that for about two months she has not been receiving the necessary medicines and insulin.

According to Begey, she has diabetes and serious kidney failure, her blood pressure rises to 200 over 120, and the condition of her leg has sharply worsened. She fears the development of gangrene and the need for dialysis. This information is known from her letter; independent medical documents have not been published publicly, OVD-Info reported.

Over the period from September 26 to October 2, this roundup includes one new arrest in a donations case, four multi-year sentences, three placements in punishment cells and two reports of the serious physical condition of people in custody.

The sums and pretexts in individual cases are particularly telling in themselves: 3,500 rubles in alleged transfers, pretrial detention; three reposts, six years in a colony; 1,250 hryvnias in transfers, 14 years in a high-treason case; three candies and an incomplete introduction to a staff member, 15 days in a punishment cell according to Berkovich herself; "unwiped dust," another 15 days in a punishment cell according to Miftakhov.

On September 30 the Kremlin again said there are no political prisoners in Russia.