Religious organisations in Russia continue to be prosecuted for not showing their official full names on literature, online, and on their buildings. Guidance issued by the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court in 2019 and 2020 has gone some way towards clarifying how and where names should be displayed, which may have resulted in an overall decrease in cases. Quantifying this accurately, however, is impossible as there is no publicly accessible centralised database of court cases and other records are patchy. The guidance also appears to have led to a shift from most cases being based on a lack of physical signage to most being based on unlabelled literature.

According to a Moscow-based lawyer who has worked on such cases, after the Supreme Court clarified that the existence of "freely accessible" religious literature can constitute "distribution" as part of missionary activity, "law enforcement officers began to look for unmarked literature. It's easier. You can always find it. And a wave of cases [based on] unlabelled literature began" (see below).

Registered religious organisations are prosecuted under Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 ("Implementation of activities by a religious organisation without indicating its official full name, including the issuing or distribution, within the framework of missionary activity, of literature and printed, audio, and video material without a label bearing this name, or with an incomplete or deliberately false label") (see below).

According to the limited available court records, seen by Forum 18, 52 cases are known to have reached court between the beginning of January 2025 and the end of April 2026. These involved 43 registered religious organisations and 9 individuals. Most resulted in convictions and fines. (See forthcoming F18News article for a list of the known prosecutions.)

It is unknown how many prosecutions there may have been, as cases under Part 3 are heard in magistrates' courts, of which there are more than 7,000 across the country. There is no publicly accessible centralised database of magistrates' courts, other nationwide databases have recently gone offline, only a handful of regional databases exist, and magistrates' courts themselves can vary in their provision of publicly available records. Establishing accurate figures is therefore difficult if communities do not themselves make prosecutions known.

Of 52 known cases in 2025 and the first four months of 2026, Forum 18 found that:
- 28 related to printed religious literature;
- 13 related to signage on or inside places of worship;
- 5 related to online materials;
- and the grounds for bringing the remaining 8 prosecutions were unknown (see below).

(These figures add up to more than the overall total of prosecutions in 2025-26 because police and prosecutors alleged that some defendants had committed more than one type of violation.)

In three cases related to religious literature which should have been labelled with religious organisations' official full names, judges ordered its destruction (including that of a New Testament). The Magistrate's Court in Moscow did not respond to Forum 18's question as to why the Judge had ordered the destruction of the New Testament and other seized literature. The Bailiffs' Department did not respond as to whether and how it had destroyed the books and whether the copy of the New Testament had been among them. In a further 14 cases, literature (including copies of the Bible and Koran) was ordered confiscated (see below).

Among cases for online activity, a Seventh-day Adventist church in Yoshkar-Ola was fined 35,000 Roubles (equivalent of about 2 weeks' average wage for an individual) because the Federal Security Service (FSB) had found it had not labelled podcast episodes with its official full name on its Yandex Music page, while the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow was fined 30,000 Roubles because it had used an abbreviated version of its name on its website and Telegram channel (see below).

Police and prosecutors still sometimes bring cases against individuals, even though only legal entities can be liable under Part 3. A few judges even convict individuals, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified this point in its reviews of judicial practice (see below).

In November 2020, the Constitutional Court resolved both that a religious organisation did not have to display its official full name at its registered address if it in fact carried out its activities elsewhere, and that it could fulfil the legal obligation to display its official full name by having a sign inside its premises. To insist otherwise, the Court ruled, "would mean excessive state interference in the sphere of freedom of conscience" (see below).

In June 2019, the Supreme Court stated that the distribution of religious materials "within the framework of missionary activity" should be interpreted as "not only their delivery to specific individuals, but also as ensuring free access to them for an indefinite number of people outside of places specially designated for the implementation of religious activity" (see below).

Lawyers who have dealt with Part 3 cases have mixed views of this guidance. Some believe the situation has improved for religious communities, while others state that the absence of reliable data means that this is not possible to ascertain (see below).

In court decisions examined by Forum 18, the Supreme Court review and Constitutional Court resolution are acknowledged by some, but not all judges, and do not seem to have led to a rise in acquittals (see below).

The relative increase in literature-related cases as compared to cases based on absence of signage suggests that the Constitutional Court resolution has had a positive effect on the number of prosecutions for the latter (see below).

Eighteen of Russia's 83 federal subjects saw at least one prosecution between the beginning of January 2025 and the end of April 2026. Most prosecutions found by Forum 18 were of Muslim organisations, although the reason for this is unclear (see forthcoming F18News article).

Many cases involve very similar circumstances. Nevertheless, outcomes may differ widely as a result of judges' varying interpretations of the law itself, of the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court's rulings, and the seriousness of the alleged violations (see below).

Some Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 prosecutions in 2025-26 appear to be one of several means for state authorities to exert pressure on particular religious communities. In Bryansk, officials targeted League of Salvation Pentecostal church, "one of the region's most socially active churches", lawyer Sergey Chugunov wrote. As well as a Part 3 fine, the church has been inspected and searched several times, and a criminal case has been launched (see forthcoming F18News article).

Also targeted was the Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in the Moscow Region town of Balashikha. As well as a Part 3 case (which a court returned to prosecutors), the church faced inspections from numerous state agencies and a fine for allegedly failing to appear at a pre-arranged meeting. "The prosecutor's office is turning into some kind of punitive body, not at all a supervisory or law enforcement agency," Pastor Roman Zhukov complained. "Without any investigation, they're already presuming us guilty" (see forthcoming F18News article).

The Russian authorities are similarly imposing punishments under Russian Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 in parts of Ukraine they illegally occupy, including in Donetsk Region and in Crimea.

Background

Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 ("Implementation of activities by a religious organisation without indicating its official full name, including the issuing or distribution, within the framework of missionary activity, of literature and printed, audio, and video material without a label bearing this name, or with an incomplete or deliberately false label") came into force in July 2016, alongside Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 4 ("Russians conducting missionary activity") and Part 5 ("Foreigners conducting missionary activity").

Article 5.26, Part 3 introduced punishment for violations of Religion Law Article 8, Paragraph 8, which states that "A religious organisation is obliged to indicate its full name when carrying out activities". This requirement had been in force since the Religion Law's adoption in 1997, but before 2016 had not had an associated administrative offence.

A religious organisation's official full name must indicate its religious affiliation and its organisational and legal form ("Centralised Religious Organisation", "Local Religious Organisation", etc.). It therefore tends to be long and complicated, but use of an abbreviated form may incur prosecution.

The "anti-missionary" amendments were introduced as part of an "anti-terrorism" package of legislation proposed by Duma deputies Irina Yarovaya, Nadezhda Gerasimova, and Aleksey Pushkov, and Senator Viktor Ozerov (all from United Russia) and adopted in July 2016.

Possible punishments

The Administrative Code specifies that cases under Article 5.26 can be brought by the police, Prosecutor's Offices, or local Justice Departments.

Under Article 5.26, Part 3, religious organisations may be fined 30,000 to 50,000 Roubles with the possible confiscation of any materials involved in the alleged offence. Such materials may later be destroyed (see below).

A fine of 30,000 Roubles is equivalent of about 10 days' average wage for an individual.

According to court decisions, judges may also decide to issue only a warning, because of the "insignificance of the offence", or because the alleged offence posed no threat to life, health, property, cultural heritage, the environment, or state security.

Constitutional Court and Supreme Court guidance: Greater clarity?

In June 2019, Russia's Supreme Court issued a review of judicial practice in cases under Administrative Code Article 5.26.

For Part 3, the Court issued three clarifications:
- firstly, that "labelling" [markirovka] refers to "the application, in any form (printed, handwritten, or otherwise), of [a religious organisation's] full official name to any materials – both those produced by the organisation itself and those produced by other organisations but used in [the religious organisation's] missionary work";
- secondly, that "the distribution of religious literature and materials for religious purposes within the framework of missionary activity should be understood as not only their delivery to specific individuals, but also as ensuring free access to them for an indefinite number of people outside of places specially designated for the implementation of religious activity";
- and thirdly, that only legal entities can be subject to prosecution under Part 3.

"In other words, if distribution occurs on premises owned or used by a religious organisation, labelling is not required", lawyer Sergey Chugunov points out, referring to the second provision. "Once the materials are removed from the premises, labelling becomes mandatory."

In the cases found by Forum 18 in 2025-26, judges frequently acknowledge this provision, but tend to interpret it to the detriment of religious organisations – if there is unlabelled literature on their premises, they are deemed guilty of allowing free access to it.

Chugunov believes that the Supreme Court's guidance should have dealt with this issue. He noted in 2023 that most such cases were being resolved before reaching court "by setting out the legal position and citing case law". When cases do reach court, however, "the legal aspect plays a lesser role".

"In my purely personal opinion, the main question in such cases is whether a young magistrate will be able to dismiss the case brought by the [Interior Ministry] Centre for Countering Extremism," Chugunov concludes. "It's best not to let it get to that point."

In November 2020, Russia's Constitutional Court heard an appeal by Word of Life Church in Dolgoprudny. The Moscow Region church had been prosecuted under Part 3 for displaying its official full name inside the entrance to its building but not on the land plot on which it stood. The Court found the disputed legislation constitutional, but issued some clarifications and stated that some Part 3 court decisions should be reconsidered.

The Constitutional Court ruled, firstly, that a religious organisation does not have to display its official full name at the address at which it is registered, as long as it does not carry out any activities at that address, "since this information is contained in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, being open and publicly available".

Secondly and most significantly, the Court ruled that "for a religious organisation to fulfil its obligation under the contested legal provisions to indicate its official full name when carrying out its activities, it is sufficient to post information about this name inside a residential building at the entrance to the premises it uses".

"Otherwise, it would mean excessive state interference in the sphere of freedom of conscience, guaranteed to everyone by Article 28 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and recognised by Article 9 of the [European] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."

The requirement to display the official full name "cannot be considered excessive", the Court noted, as it is "primarily intended to ensure that citizens who enter into relations with the organisation can clearly understand which religious organisation – among the many – they are dealing with".

Nevertheless, "the fundamental principle of freedom of religion does not require religious organisations, unlike some other types of legal entities, to ensure unlimited access to the places where they conduct their activities", and therefore "ensuring unlimited access to a religious organisation's place of activity, and consequently informing the general public directly at the religious organisation's place of activity of its official full name, cannot be considered an absolute obligation".

This Constitutional Court resolution was greeted positively by lawyers who have handled Part 3 prosecutions. Having to put up signs at the entrances to apartment buildings, private homes, or business centres where religious organisations only use part of the premises is "excessive", Konstantin Yerofeyev of the St Petersburg Bar Association told Advokatskaya Gazeta on 9 November 2020.

The 2020 resolution "guarantees a balance between a religious organisation's right to practice and disseminate its faith freely and citizens' right to information," Yerofeyev added.

"Although the ruling does not resolve all issues related to the application of the contested provisions, its adoption will allow religious organisations to avoid unjustified fines", Sergey Chugunov of the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice commented to Advokatskaya Gazeta.

The situation with Part 3 prosecutions sometimes "reaches the point of absurdity", according to Stanislav Kulov of the Karachay-Cherkessiya Bar Association. "A fine can be imposed even if there is a sign with the name on the front door of the premises, but not on the gate of the property." He added that he hopes the resolution will have a positive impact on the law's application and will stem the "flurry" of Part 3 cases.

Police, prosecutors "will come up with new grounds for prosecution"

It appears from the cases found by Forum 18 in 2025-26 that the Constitutional Court ruling has indeed had an effect on Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 cases. Those involving physical signage are largely based on the complete absence of signs rather than their disputed location, and their number in comparison to literature-based prosecutions has decreased significantly.

"In my opinion, the situation has improved somewhat due to greater clarity about what is and is not permitted," a Moscow-based lawyer who has worked on such cases commented to Forum 18 on 26 May. "Law enforcement agencies have stopped arbitrarily interpreting how a sign with a religious organisation's name should be placed, and have stopped initiating cases for improperly placed signs."

The lawyer does not, however, believe that the Constitutional Court or Supreme Court guidance has necessarily led to an absolute decrease in prosecutions. "It does not affect the number of protocols. [Police and prosecutors] will come up with new grounds for prosecution. That's easy to do."

Judges do not, however, always abide by the guidance. For example, Pyatigorsk Magistrate's Court No. 9 (Stavropol Region) fined the Local Religious Organisation of Christians of Evangelical Faith Church of the Love of Christ 30,000 Roubles on 12 May 2025, despite the fact that the church did have a sign with its official full name inside the room in which it held services.

Police charged the church with failing to indicate its official full name on the residential building where it carried out its activities, the address of which was not in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. The church's lawyer pointed out that there was a sign inside the prayer room, and argued that the law does not specify a required location.

The judge cited the 2020 Constitutional Court resolution, arguing that the church should have had a sign on the building as it is registered at a different address. The judge concluded that placing the sign inside the building "limits the rights of citizens who wish to join this religious movement to attend religious events, and does not exclude the accidental attendance of such events by citizens who do not wish to participate in them".

The church appealed unsuccessfully on 17 July 2025 at Pyatigorsk City Court.

Forum 18 wrote to Stavropol Region's branch of the Interior Ministry, Pyatigorsk Magistrate's Court No. 9, and Pyatigorsk City Court on 26 May, asking why the church had been prosecuted and convicted in light of the Constitutional Court's 2020 resolution. Only Pyatigorsk City Court responded, on 28 May, not answering this question but directing Forum 18 to enquire at the court of first instance.

More prosecutions for unlabelled religious literature

The Constitutional Court guidance appears to have led to a decrease in prosecutions for lack of signage on buildings. At the same time, the Supreme Court guidance appears to have resulted in a relative increase in prosecutions for unlabelled religious literature. The increase came despite the fact that the guidance could – and according to some lawyers should – be interpreted as meaning that literature kept on the premises of a religious organisation (in "places specifically designated for religious activity") does not need to be labelled.

"Cases involving 'signage' became irrelevant after the Russian Constitutional Court clarified that there are no legally established requirements for their placement. Conversely, after the [Supreme Court] clarified that freely accessible religious literature can be considered as being distributed as part of missionary activity, and therefore subject to labelling, law enforcement officers began to look for unmarked literature," the Moscow-based lawyer who has worked on such cases commented to Forum 18 on 29 May. "It's easier. You can always find it. And a wave of cases [based on] unlabelled literature began. Now it's on trend."

Lack of consistency in court rulings

Many cases under Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 ("Implementation of activities by a religious organisation without indicating its official full name, including the issuing or distribution, within the framework of missionary activity, of literature and printed, audio, and video material without a label bearing this name, or with an incomplete or deliberately false label") involve very similar circumstances. Nevertheless, their outcomes may differ widely as a result of judges' varying interpretations both of the law itself and the seriousness of the alleged violations.

The Supreme Court's stipulation that "distribution" of religious literature "within the framework of missionary activity" should be understood "not only as their delivery to specific individuals, but also as ensuring free access to them for an indefinite number of people outside of places specially designated for the implementation of religious activity" is at the root of many of these discrepancies.

"Courts may make opposing contradictory decisions," the Moscow-based lawyer who has worked on such cases told Forum 18 on 29 May. "I have seen many of these."

The Local Religious Organisation "Society for Krishna Consciousness of the City of Moscow" (fined for unlabelled books in a locked storage area) was successful in its appeal against a December 2025 conviction. By contrast, the Religious Organisation "Buddhist Centre Padmasambhava", also Moscow-based, which was fined for a similar offence, had its appeal rejected.

On 7 July 2025, Yoshkar-Ola Magistrate's Court No. 9 (Mari El Republic) acquitted the Local Religious Organisation "Local Church of Seventh-day Adventist Christians 'Central'" explicitly because its premises were in fact "a place specifically designated for religious activity" by virtue of an agreement of free use, and therefore literature kept there did not need to be labelled.

Conversely, for instance, the Local Religious Organisation Podolsk Community of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Moscow Region) received a fine of 30,000 Roubles on 19 November 2025, when the judge at Podolsk Magistrate's Court No. 186, citing the Supreme Court's 2019 review, concluded that books on a shelf in a corridor on the church's premises were indeed freely accessible to the public.

Korolyov Magistrate's Court No. 90, also in Moscow Region, fined the Centralised Religious Organisation "Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Moscow Region" 30,000 Roubles on 2 October 2025 because a prosecutor's office inspection had found a single unlabelled Arabic-language book on the rented premises of a local Muslim community which is associated with the centralised organisation. The judge cited the Supreme Court review, but did not accept the defence argument that the premises were "specially designated for religious activity".

Broad interpretation of the law?

Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 refers only to the "activity" of religious organisations, during which they must display their full official names, without further specification. Consequently, religious organisations can be prosecuted for not displaying their full official names while doing a wide range of different things.

As noted above, the full official name must indicate the religious affiliation of a religious association and its organisational and legal form ("Centralised Religious Organisation", "Local Religious Organisation", etc.). It therefore tends to be long and complicated, but use of an abbreviated form may incur prosecution.

In 2025 and the first four months of 2026, Forum 18 found that the majority of prosecutions were for allegedly "distributing within the framework of missionary activity" religious literature or other materials which were not labelled with the organisation's official full name – a total of 28 cases. A further 13 cases involved a lack of signage on or inside places of worship. Five cases involved online materials, and the grounds for eight prosecutions remain unknown.

These figures add up to more than the overall total of prosecutions in 2025-26 because police and prosecutors alleged that some defendants had committed more than one type of violation.

Cases based on online materials include:

– a Seventh-day Adventist church in Yoshkar-Ola (Mari El Republic), fined 35,000 Roubles because the Federal Security Service (FSB) had found it had not labelled podcast episodes with its official full name on its Yandex Music page;
– the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow, which used an abbreviated version of its name on its website and Telegram channel and was fined 30,000 Roubles;
– a Pentecostal church in Tyumen which prosecutors charged (among other violations) with not including its official full name in a Word document available for download on its website (the church was acquitted);
– the Association of Orthodox Communities of the Apostolic Tradition, also fined 30,000 Roubles for using an abbreviated form of its name on its website and Telegram channel;
– a Pentecostal church in Yoshkar-Ola, which received a warning for not displaying its official full name in a pinned post on a Telegram channel.

Centralised religious organisations punished for local communities' actions

Another indication of broad interpretation of Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 is the issue of centralised religious organisations being punished for the alleged failure of associated local religious communities to display its name. As well as the example of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Moscow Region (see above), and the case of the League of Salvation Pentecostal church in Bryansk (see forthcoming F18News article), Krasnoyarsk Muftiyat was also found guilty in these circumstances.

On 29 August 2025, Soviet District Magistrate's Court No. 81 (on behalf of Magistrate's Court No. 86) fined the Centralised Religious Organisation Unified Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Krasnoyarsk Region (Krasnoyarsk Muftiyat) 30,000 Roubles under Part 3. A prosecutor's office inspection in Bolshaya Murta District (about 100km north of the city of Krasnoyarsk) had found that a prayer room was operating without displaying a sign with the centralised religious organisation's official full name.

Forum 18 wrote to Krasnoyarsk Regional Prosecutor's Office and both magistrates' courts on 26 May, asking why the Muftiyat had been prosecuted and convicted for the alleged actions of a separate, unregistered religious association. Forum 18 had received no responses by the end of the working day in Krasnoyarsk of 5 June. The Muftiyat has also not responded to Forum 18's written questions about the case.

Confiscation, destruction of religious literature

Forum 18 found 17 cases in 2025-26 in which judges ordered the confiscation of religious literature which had allegedly been "distributed within the framework of missionary activity" (and should therefore have been labelled with the religious organisations' official full names) and which police or prosecutors had seized when they searched the religious organisations' premises. In three of these cases, the literature was also ordered destroyed.

In earlier cases, judges have ordered that books by the late Turkish Muslim theologian Said Nursi, as well as other Muslim texts, as well as Jehovah's Witness publications, be destroyed. In June 2025, a court in Russian-occupied Ukraine ordered seized Bibles and hymnbooks destroyed.

(In other cases in 2025-26, judges ordered seized literature to be returned to its owners. It is unclear why some cases end in confiscation while others do not.)

Ten of these 17 cases involved Islamic literature, two Seventh-day Adventist, one Catholic, one Pentecostal, one Methodist, one Buddhist, and one Society for Krishna Consciousness.

In four cases – three in Moscow and one in the Moscow Region – judges ordered the confiscation of copies of the Koran. In another, unlawfully brought against a Methodist pastor in Kabardino-Balkariya, the judge ordered the confiscation of two Bibles and a separate copy of the New Testament.

In October 2025, according to the schedule of planned inspections of non-commercial organisations on the Justice Ministry website, Justice Ministry officials in Moscow carried out a documentary inspection of the Moscow branch of Caritas, the international Catholic aid network (Religious Organisation Catholic Centre "Caritas of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow").

According to the written decision available on the Moscow magistrates' courts portal, on 2 December 2025 prosecutors summoned the director, Yelena Poslanchik, and drew up a protocol against the organisation under Article 5.26, Part 3. Prosecutors accused Caritas of distributing, "within the framework of missionary activity", five books not labelled with its official full name "by ensuring free access to this literature for an indefinite number of persons". It is unclear from the court decision how these books came to prosecutors' attention or where they were kept.

Judge Nikolay Vorobyov of Timiryazevsky District Magistrate's Court No. 335 issued Caritas with a warning rather than a fine. The judge decided that the offence had caused no harm to life, health, property, the environment, or cultural heritage. Despite this, he ordered that the books be confiscated and destroyed by bailiffs.

Among the five books was one named in the court decision as "With love from the Lord, the Word of Life, the New Testament in perfect [sovershennom] translation". It appears that this title in fact refers to "With love from the Lord. The Word of Life: the New Testament in modern [sovremennom] translation", a Russian translation produced by the International Bible Society in 1991 (this particular edition was published in Minsk in 1993).

Forum 18 wrote to Magistrate's Court No. 335 on 26 May to ask why Judge Vorobyov had ordered the destruction of the seized literature, and in particular, why he had considered it necessary for a New Testament to be destroyed.

Forum 18 also wrote to Koptevsky District Bailiffs' Department to ask whether and how it had destroyed the books and whether the copy of the New Testament had been among them.

Forum 18 had received no response from either court or bailiffs by the afternoon of the working day in Moscow of 5 June. Caritas has also not responded to Forum 18's written questions about the case.

Wrongful prosecutions of individuals still taking place

Forum 18 found that nine individuals (one woman, eight men) were unlawfully brought to court in 2025 and the first four months of 2026 under Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 3 – nearly a decade after this point was first clarified by Russia's Supreme Court.

Only legal entities are subject to prosecution under Part 3, as the law itself only explicitly mentions religious organisations. The Supreme Court clarified this in a ruling of 7 November 2017 (which upheld the appeal of a Pentecostal pastor who argued that Part 3, as written, could not apply either to private citizens or people employed in an official capacity). It reiterated it in its review of judicial practice of 26 June 2019.

In the nine cases involving individuals, three people received fines. First-instance courts acquitted two (a Muslim religious group's leader in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region and a Seventh-day Adventist assistant pastor in Kabardino-Balkariya) and sent three cases back to police or prosecutors. The outcome of one case remains unknown.

Police in Kayasula (Stavropol Region) charged imam Muslim Menglibulatov with having "carried out the activities of a religious organisation-mosque" while displaying "no information, either outside the building or inside the premises, indicating that this religious organisation was located and operating at this address". He admitted guilt and Neftekumsk Magistrate's Court No. 2 fined him 30,000 Roubles on 20 May 2025. He did not appeal.

In the spring of 2025, officers of the police, FSB, and Centre for Countering Extremism searched the home of Methodist pastor Svetlana Getmanets, where her church meets for worship. A magistrate's court in Nalchik (Republic of Kabardino-Balkariya) subsequently found her guilty of keeping on the premises two Bibles, a New Testament, and a hymn book which were not labelled with the church's official full name, and were "freely available to all citizens visiting this religious organisation, and not only to its members". The judge imposed a 30,000 Rouble fine plus confiscation of the books.

Pastor Getmanets argued in her appeal that only legal entities are liable under Article 5.26, Part 3, and that according to the Supreme Court, literature does not have to be labelled if kept in "a place specially designated for religious activity". Despite this, Nalchik City Court upheld her conviction on 1 July 2025 (but reduced her fine by half).

Levon Chamyan, the leader of the "Bible League" Evangelical church in Sochi (Krasnodar Region) received a fine of 50,000 Roubles on 7 March 2025 at Lazarevsky District Magistrate's Court No. 94. He had been charged with "distributing, as part of missionary activity", a New Testament and a prayer guide not labelled with his organisation's official full name. This was despite the fact that his church is an unregistered religious group, which also cannot be subject to any administrative prosecution as it is not a legal entity.

Chamyan appealed unsuccessfully on 10 April 2025 at Lazarevsky District Court, but eventually managed to have his conviction and fine overturned at the 4th Cassational Court in Krasnodar on 11 August 2025. (END)

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