Vadim Kharchenko

Resident of Gelendzhik. Opposition blogger, labeled a "foreign agent" on 20 January 2023. The first report of a possible criminal case against the blogger for discrediting the Armed Forces appeared on 12 February 2023 in the Telegram channel "Good Gelendzhik". On 15 February, it was also reported there that he was sent under house arrest, but without specifying the source or evidence of this. On 20 February, the Telegram channel published what was presumably a brief fragment of the the decision to initiate a criminal case. Acquaintances expressed concern that they had not been able to reach Kharchenko for ten days. In early March, the same Telegram channel published information that Kharchenko had been seen in the city. In January 2024, when the case went to court, it became known that Kharchenko was also charged with articles on offending religious feelings, defamation involving an accusation of committing a crime against sexual integrity, and public calls for extremist activity. At the end of July 2024, Kharchenko was sent to a pre-trial detention centre. In August, his lawyer said that the blogger was being deliberately subjected to torture: he was being held in solitary confinement in unsanitary conditions, in a damp basement without windows. Dust and dirt were flying into the room through the bars, and at night, people in neighboring cells were shouting and swearing. In addition, the same voice constantly read aloud, loudly and monotonously, the rules and regulations of detention center No. 3. The prisoner has chronic bronchitis and asthma, but he was not receiving any medical care. On August 14, it became known that Kharchenko had been transferred to more favorable conditions. On 5 December 2024, the court replaced the blogger's restraint with a ban on certain actions. However, he was not released and was detained, and later taken into custody on a new case—for defamation of Yaroslav Krasnoshchekov - a lawyer who was named the victim in the first case. At the same time, the judge who overlooked the first case recused herself. On 12 March 2025, Kharchenko was sentenced to seven years in a general regime colony for discrediting the Armed Forces and other charges. Later it became known that in the second case, as in the first, there are articles on insulting the religious feelings of believers and inciting hatred. The defence claims that Kharchenko's second case is built on the same evidence as the first one.