Sergeii Kustov
- Criminal Code
- Article 128.1 part 3, Russian Criminal Code
- Region
- Ivanovo Oblast
- City
- Ivanovo
Case summary
A journalist and editor-in-chief of the Ivanovo BARS TV channel and IvanovoNews, Kustov had his flat and the BARS TV editorial office raided by law enforcement on the morning of 20 May 2025. According to IvanovoNews, the searches were linked to a criminal defamation case stemming from an article titled "'Cops' Mock the Pain of Relatives of Missing Soldiers".
Just before the raids, Kustov received a threatening message—"You will answer for this"—along with a link to his own article. In the piece, he had named the law enforcement officers who had objected to an earlier IvanovoNews report about the families of soldiers declared missing in action.
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Source: this person’s record in the OVD-Info political persecution database
Published under CC BY 3.0. The criteria for treating a person as politically persecuted belong to OVD-Info; FACTUM relays their assessment and makes none of its own.
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