RUSSIA: Buddhist’s retrial, Protestant pastor’s appeal fails
By Victoria Arnold
Forum 18 (10.12.2025) – A Moscow Buddhist is due to stand trial a second time on charges of distributing “false information” about the Russian Armed Forces, after an appeal court overturned his conviction and 8-year prison sentence. At his original trial, Ilya Vasilyev had asked for a public defender. The judge’s refusal to allow this constituted a violation of his right to a defence, Moscow City Court found on 22 October.
Prosecutors accused Vasilyev, director of the Moscow Zen Centre, of “Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for reasons of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or for reasons of hatred or enmity against any social group” (Criminal Code Article 207.3, Part 2 Paragraph d) for an English-language Facebook post about a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kherson in 2022. The post was made “solely out of religious conviction”, his lawyer told Forum 18 earlier (see below).
At present, Vasilyev – who is now 52 – is still in detention at Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina Investigation Prison (see below).
After his initial conviction, the court press secretary refused to explain to Forum 18 why the Judge considered that such a long custodial term was necessary, and in what way Vasilyev could be considered dangerous (see below).
On 25 November, 63-year-old Protestant pastor Nikolay Romanyuk appealed unsuccessfully at Moscow Regional Court against his criminal conviction for opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine on religious grounds. He is now awaiting transfer to a prison colony to begin serving his 4-year sentence (see below).
Prosecutors too challenged the original verdict seeking a harsher verdict. Moscow Regional Prosecutor’s Office did not respond to Forum 18’s question as to why prosecutors were challenging the lower court’s verdict (see below).
Balashikha City Court had found Pastor Romanyuk guilty on 3 September under Criminal Code Article 280.4 (“Public calls to implement activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation, or to obstruct the exercise by government bodies and their officials of their powers to ensure the security of the Russian Federation”) for preaching that church members should not fight in Ukraine (see below).
The Investigative Committee opened a case for “Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces” against Orthodox journalist Kseniya Luchenko. Investigators launched the case for a Telegram post in which she condemned a Russian missile strike on a Kyiv children’s hospital in July 2024, and contrasted this with the Russian state and Moscow Patriarchate’s promotion of so-called “traditional values”.
Although Luchenko left Russia in 2022, a Moscow court issued a detention order for her in absentia on 24 November. Investigators had already had her placed on the Interior Ministry’s Federal Wanted List, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) “List of Terrorists and Extremists”, and the Justice Ministry’s register of “foreign agents”. If she returns to Russia, she will be immediately arrested.
Photo : Hieromonk Iona Sigida – Forum 18
