Vadim Levchuk and Sergey Britvin Released After Concluding their Prison Sentences for a Conviction on Practicing their Faith

On December 30, 2021, residents of Berezovsky, Sergey Britvin and Vadim Levchuk, were released, having completely served the sentence imposed by the court in a correctional colony in Novosibirsk. For the long-awaited meeting with them, relatives, friends and relatives traveled more than 300 kilometers.

At the exit from the colony, the believers were greeted with applause by about 30 people, including the wife of Sergey Britvin, Natalya, and the eldest son of Vadim Levchuk. His wife Tatyana and his youngest son were unable to come to Novosibirsk due to illness.

In September 2020, the Berezovskiy City Court of the Kemerovo Region sentenced two believers to 4 years in prison for talking to others about the Bible. The court was not embarrassed by any falsifications in the case, or false testimony of witnesses, or the absence of corpus delicti and victims. The appellate instance upheld the verdict.

Due to the long stay of the believers in the pre-trial detention center, during the investigation, they had to spend about 10 months in the colony during the investigation. De facto, they spent 250 days under house arrest, 700 days in a pre-trial detention center and another 297 days (9 months, 3 weeks and 1 day) in correctional colony No. 3 in Novosibirsk.

In prisons, Vadim Levchuk was placed in a punishment cell and under strict conditions of detention on trumped-up charges. Sergey Britvin faced other difficulties. He is a disabled person of the II group and cannot lift more than 2 kilograms, therefore, many everyday tasks are beyond his strength. Prisoners helped Sergey solve everyday problems: for example, they washed his clothes and heated water for him.

As the believers themselves said, letters from all over the world were a special source of support for them in the colony. Prisoners were surprised that even those with whom they did not personally know wrote to believers. Vadim Levchuk recalls: "When 88 letters were brought to me for the first time, I leaned over the window in the cell door to thank the operative. She also leaned over and said: "Let me at least look at you, otherwise everyone in the letters is interested in how you feel."

“While in prison, Vadim gratefully recalled the smiles of his loyal friends, their support during the court hearings, how they inspired him with applause,” says Tatyana, Vadim's wife.

In addition to Levchuk and Britvin, 11 other Jehovah's Witnesses from the Kemerovo region were prosecuted on the basis of religious discrimination, three of them were sentenced to suspended sentences.

During 2021, several anti-records were registered in Russia – in the number of sentences to Jehovah's Witnesses, in their cruelty, as well as in the number of believers in colonies and pre-trial detention centers. However, the end of the year was marked by the ruling of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in defense of believers and the first acquittal.