In Exchange for Two Released: Two More of Jehovah's Witnesses Prosecuted in Adygea

Early in the morning of April 29, 2025, in Adygeysk, a small town on the border with the Krasnodar Territory, searches were carried out in the family homes of two Jehovah's Witnesses: Aleksey Dmitriyev, 57, and Yuriy Sergeechev, 74. They were interrogated, detained, and on the next day sent to a pretrial detention center (in Tlyustenkhabl).

The search warrant was issued by Zalim Ashinov, investigator of the Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Adygea. According to eyewitnesses, the investigative actions were carried out by two FSB teams from Maykop. The law enforcement officers behaved appropriately, however they did not allow the believers to observe the search. Mobile devices, a computer, electronic storage media and notebooks were seized.

The search caused stress to both families. Sergeechev's wife and Dmitriyev's 90-year-old mother suffered a hypertensive crisis. Sergeechev suffers from heart problems: he has had two heart attacks and a few days prior to his arrest had been discharged from a day hospital, where he had been treated for angina pectoris and hypertension.

At the end of April, two believers from Adygea — Inver Siyukhov and Nikolay Voishchev — were released after serving sentences for their faith.