Jehovah’s Witness sentenced to six years in Togliatti

Sergei Fyodorov, a Jehovah’s Witness, was sentenced to six years in a general-regime penal colony in Togliatti on 22 July, according to a portal monitoring the persecution of the faith’s members in Russia.

Sergei Fyodorov’s home was first searched in 2019 while he was living in Leningrad Oblast; the operation was carried out as part of a criminal case against believers from Petrozavodsk. In March 2024, security forces raided Sergei Fyodorov’s flat in Togliatti. According to his wife Yevgenia, his glasses were broken and his lip was cut during the search; banned literature and a USB flash drive were planted on him. Sergei Fyodorov was taken to Petrozavodsk to provide a statement and was subsequently released. He and his wife remained in Petrozavodsk temporarily. At the end of June that year, a third search was carried out at his home, after which he was remanded in custody.

During the investigation, the believer was held in Karelia, but he was transferred to Samara Oblast for his trial in 2026. He was convicted of organising the activities of an extremist organisation under Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code.

In his closing statement, he said: ‘Whatever your decision may be, I will accept it. The word of God helps me look to the future with confidence. This case is just another chapter. There is a whole book still ahead. I am not ashamed of how I have lived this chapter. I believe in people, in their good qualities, and I believe that truth does not change with time — it is eternal. I am fond of the words of the 19th-century German thinker Arthur Schopenhauer: “The truth can wait, for it lives a long life.” I believe that in time everything will fall into place, that sooner or later justice will prevail and all the innocent will be vindicated — by a human court or by the court of God.’