Viktor Timoshchenko
- Criminal Code
- Article 282.2 part 1, Russian Criminal Code
- Case category
- Extremism casesCases against Jehovah's Witnesses
- Region
- Khakassia
- City
- Abakan
Recognition by human rights organisations
- Recognised as unlawfully deprived of liberty for exercising freedom of religionby Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners
This is the assessment of the organisation named above, not ours. FACTUM reports it with attribution and does not make its own.
Case summary
Resident of Khakassia. At the end of September 2025, he and two other people were detained after searches of 25 Jehovah's Witnesses families in the villages of Maina and Cheremushki. The believers were accused of organising the activities of an extremist organisation because of their involvement in the Jehovah's Witnesses community, which was groundlessly recognised as an extremist organisation and banned in Russia. According to the law enforcers, they organised worship meetings. After the detention, the believers were taken into custody.
In January 2026, Timoshchenko was transferred to house arrest.
Others charged under Article 282.2 part 1, Russian Criminal Code
What we write about political persecution
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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.
OVD-Info has been designated an «extremist» organisation in Russia — by decision of the Russian authorities, like other independent human rights and media projects.