Russia’s Investigative Committee have carried out further armed raids of homes in occupied Simferopol (Crimea) with two women now facing sentences of six years or more for practising their faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses. 59-year-old Halyna Pryvalova and Anna Moroz (27) were subjected to searches and interrogations, before being forced to sign undertakings not to leave Simferopol. This is the second time in a matter of months that Russia has targeted women believers in occupied Crimea. Horrific sentences passed against other female political prisoners since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine probably make it a question of time before female Jehovah’s Witnesses are imprisoned for their faith, as have been men.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ website reports that searches were carried out early in the morning of 5 February 2026. The search of Halyna Pryvalova’s home lasted an hour and a half, while the enforcement officers were at Anna Moroz’ home for around six years, removing the mobile phones of both Anna and her parents, with whom she lives, as well as photographs, personal notes, postcards, bank cards; memory drives and an e-book reader. There were around 10 ‘officers’ involved in the searches, including an FSB major, identified only by his surname Latyshev, and his involvement in other persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses, including Taras and Daria Kuzio and others from Yalta.
Both women, Anna’s husband and parents were all taken away for interrogation and then released, with the criminal charges, initiated by the Investigative Committee, on 26 January, against Halyna Pryvalova and Anna Moroz. Both believers are accused of ‘extremism’, however it is as yet unclear which particular charge of the arsenal standardly used against Jehovah’s Witnesses they will be facing.
All such charges are based solely on the flawed and internationally condemned ruling by Russia’s supreme court on 20 April 2017 which outlawed the Jehovah’s Witnesses, claiming them to be an ‘extremist organization’. Believers are either accused of ‘organizing the activities of an extremist organization’ under Article 282.2 § 1 of Russia’s criminal code, or merely of ‘involvement in the activities’ of this purportedly extremist organization, under Article 282.2 § 2. The choice of charge seems extremely arbitrary, with Oleksandr Lytvyniuk (b. 1960) and Oleksandr Dubovenko (b. 1973) accused of ‘organizing under Article 282.2 § 1 and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment because they had organized a Zoom conference. Russia has also begun using a further bizarre charge, of ‘financing the activities of an extremist organization’ under Article 282.3 § 1, with this, quite conceivably, for as little as collecting money for photocopies.
It is now known, for example, that Olena Ivashina (50) and 55-year-old Olha Podlesna, who were arrested after similar searches in December 2025, are both facing charges of ‘financing extremist activities’, under Article 282.3 § 1. The charge is seemingly because they are accused of ‘transferring funds in the form of donations”. They are currently under house arrest.
The new attacks on believers in February comes just over two weeks after Serhiy Filatov, Russia’s first Crimean Jehovah’s Witness prisoner of conscience, was released from a Russian prison colony. He had served the monstrous six-year sentence passed on him for his faith in full.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses website now reports that there are 35 victims of persecution in occupied Crimea, with a number of male believers serving sentences of six or six and a half years. Although Russia’s proxy ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics’ followed Russia from the outset in outlawing and harassing Jehovah’s Witnesses, the first reported arrest in occupied Donetsk was in August 2025.
All of these prosecutions are in flagrant violation of Russia’s commitments under International Humanitarian Law and its own constitution. Russia’s ‘extremism’ legislation is already dangerously loose and ill-defined, with the ‘evidence’ that Russia will use against Halyna Pryvalova and Anna Moroz likely to be based on ‘proof’, found by rummaging through their phones, personal notes, etc., that they are Jehovah’s Witnesses, something that neither believer would deny.
Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted in occupied Crimea
Olena Ivashina (b. 1975) and Olha Podlesna (b. 1971)
Tamara Bratseva (b. 1955)
Victor Ursu (b. 1965)
Victor Stashevsky (b. 1988)
Serhiy Parfenovych (b. 1972) and Yury Herashchenko (b. 1979)
Viktor Kurdinov (b. 1969) and Serhiy Zhyhalov (b. 1971)
Oleksandr Dubovenko (b. 1973) and Oleksandr Lytvyniak (b. 1960)
Yevhen Zhukov; Volodymyr Maladyka and Volodymyr Sakada
Maksym Zinchenko (b. 1992)
Igor Schmidt (b. 1972)
Artem Gerasimov (b. 1985)
Serhiy Filatov (b. 1972)
Artem Shabliy (b. 1990)
