Senior Presbyter of the Holy Trinity Church of Evangelical Christians in the Moscow region. On October 18, 2024, Romaniuk's home, as well as the homes of two other believers and two prayer houses in the Moscow region (one in Balashikha and one in Volokolamsk), were searched, as reported by church minister Roman Zhukov. In some cases, special forces broke down doors. As a result of the searches, computers, laptops, flash drives, discs and some documents were seized. One of the believers had all of his credit cards, his mother's pension card and International passports taken away. The "siloviki" (law enforcement officers) also visited the home of Ilya and Sergey Romanyuk (Zhukov does not specify what relation they are to the pastor). Although they did not search the house, both men were placed face down on the floor at gunpoint and kept in that position for 12 hours, according to Zhukov. Of those 12 hours, for one and a half hours the men were forced to lay on the ground outside, dressed in light clothing and barefoot. Pastor Romaniuk was detained the same evening. According to Zhukov, the pastor was offered a chance to record a video message, possibly with a confession of guilt, but he refused. On October 20, the court sent him into custody on charges of calling for activities aimed at threatening the security of the Russian Federation due to an anti-war sermon he delivered on September 25, 2022. The hearing to determine the measure of restriction was held behind closed doors.

You can read more about politically persecuted people in the Telegram channel OVD-Info LIVE and our politically motivated criminal prosecutions in Russia database