New Searches at Homes of Jehovah's Witnesses Again in the Moscow and Tver Regions. Two Men Detained in Solnechnogorsk and Tver

On April 8, 2025, Viktor Velikov, 54, one of Jehovah's Witnesses from Solnechnogorsk, was searched, after which the man was placed in a temporary detention facility for two days, and then in a pre-trial detention center. He is in the status of a defendant in the case of financing the activities of an extremist organization.

At 6 a.m., Viktor and his wife heard a loud knock on the door. Opening it, they saw a district police officer, two law enforcement officers and testifying witnesses. The security forces behaved correctly. According to them, they were looking for personal notes, Bibles and the Koran. Electronic devices and bank cards were confiscated from the believer. The search lasted about two hours, after which the man was taken to the Savelovsky Investigative Committee, where he was interrogated, charged under Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and detained.

Earlier, in 2023, Viktor Velikov had already been searched - then police officers came to his workplace and took him home. They searched for any documents or electronic media that could mention Jehovah's name or Bible terms. He was also interrogated in the Moscow department of the Investigative Committee. According to available information, the new criminal case is related to the case against Aleksandr Serebryakov, who was sentenced to five years in prison by the court in December 2024 on similar charges.