Mass Searches in Khakassia. Three Believers Sent to a Pre-trial Detention Center

About 25 families of Jehovah's Witnesses in the villages of Maina and Cheryomushki (Khakassia) were searched, and at least 45 people were interrogated. Three believers—Viktor Timoshchenko, Aleksandr Gorev and Yevgeniy Bagin—were taken into custody. Investigational measures initiated by the FSB of Russia have been carried out since September 23, 2025.

Maina and Cheryomushki are workers' settlements with a total population of about 12,000 people, located on the opposite banks of the Yenisei, not far from the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. During the searches, which began at 6 am, phones and electronic devices were confiscated from believers. During the next day, Jehovah's Witnesses were interrogated from Maina in Sayanogorsk, and closer to midnight, from Cheryomushki. Timoshchenko, Gorev and Bagin were taken 100 kilometers away from home to Abakan, the capital of Khakassia. According to the relatives of the men, they were accused of organizing religious meetings and sent to a pre-trial detention center by a court decision.

The number of searches that have taken place since the liquidation of legal entities of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2017 has long exceeded 2000, but such mass searches are not carried out so often. Earlier large-scale raids (some of them were called "Armageddon", "Judgment Day") took place in the Jewish Autonomous Region, Crimea, Voronezh and Bryansk regions, in the Altai Territory.