Nazaruk Anastasiya Mikhaylovna

In May 2023, security forces in Pyatigorsk, Stavropol Krai, searched the registered address of anti-war activist Anastasia Nazaruk, as well as her mother's home in Anadyr, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Nazaruk's mother was told that her daughter had sent money from Raiffeisen Bank to a Ukrainian Armed Forces account and was now accusing her of treason. Anastasia claims she was never a client of the bank. Security forces also claimed that certain social media posts were the basis for the case. In June, a search was conducted in Anadyr at the home of Anastasia's husband, Roman Nazaruk's mother. According to unconfirmed reports, security forces were also searching for Nazaruk in Sevastopol, where he had previously held an anti-war picket. The homes of Roman and Anastasia's parents were searched again in Anadyr in October 2023. However, security forces did not issue them a warrant for investigation. Roman and Anastasia Nazaruk have been charged in absentia with spreading "fakes" about the Russian army, motivated by political hatred. They have been placed on the wanted list, and both have been remanded in custody. According to investigators, between December 2022 and March 2023, Roman and Anastasia, while abroad, published false information about the war in Ukraine. Nazaruk was charged with 16 posts on VKontakte about the war in Ukraine, missile strikes, and the deaths of civilians. The first post Nazaruk is accused of allegedly committing reads: "Russian troops bombed the Drama Theater in Mariupol, killing hundreds, and now shamefully shield it with a screen." He was also charged with a video recording in which he claims to have worked for the FSB border service and now condemns the war in Ukraine and Putin. The corresponding recording was published on his wife's YouTube channel. "I, Roman Igorevich Nazaruk, am a citizen of the Russian Federation and hold no other citizenship. I graduated from the Kazan Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, completed my military service, and also served under contract in the border agencies of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Putin attacked Ukraine in 2014, and he confirmed this in one of his interviews, calling it a blockade of the Ukrainian armed forces stationed in Crimea. Thousands of people died in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions due to his actions, and now, it would seem, when the conflict was practically frozen and agreements were in place, he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This only confirms the fact that it is impossible to reach an agreement with him. Now hundreds of thousands of people are dying in Putin's war," the man says in the video. In two counts, the convicted man was also charged with reposting publications by his wife, Anastasia Nazaruk, in which she spoke out against the war in Ukraine. On April 10, 2024, Judge Anton Kodes of the Anadyr City Court of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug sentenced Roman Nazaruk in absentia to seven years in a general regime penal colony. The sentence was not appealed and entered into force. On April 23, 2024, Judge Andrei Zhukov of the Anadyr City Court of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug sentenced Anastasia Nazaruk in absentia to seven years in a general regime penal colony. The sentence was also not appealed and entered into force. No later than November 2024, a second criminal case was opened against Anastasia Nazaruk for "fakes" about the Russian army, motivated by political hatred. According to investigators, while abroad, Nazaruk wrote under a post about the bombing of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam: "The Russians were so afraid of the counteroffensive that they decided to bury numerous settlements, people, and animals underwater—they spare no one." Russians, wake up, do you all have a brain? What are you doing? Stop justifying Putin's crimes, stop committing them yourselves. Stop it." On December 18, 2024, the Pyatigorsk City Court of the Stavropol Territory found Anastasia Nazaruk guilty and sentenced her to seven years in prison with a three-year internet ban. Taking into account the previous sentence handed down by the Anadyr City Court, the final sentence was ten years in a general regime penal colony, along with an additional five-year ban on social media. The sentence was not appealed and entered into force.