Search
Irkutsk human rights defender Svyatoslav Khromenkov published a video message on the “Zapravka 38” channel, saying that armed police were trying to break into his home.
In the comments on the post, it’s reported that the police are conducting a search “as part of a case involving some company from ages ago, which doesn’t even exist,” and are also preventing a lawyer from entering.
8:30 After the search, Svyatoslav Khromenkov was taken to the Investigative Committee, report “People of Baikal,” citing the human rights defender’s wife. She said that the officers seized personal belongings unrelated to the case: documents for their house and a car that does not belong to them, and her psychologist’s journal. According to his wife, the search warrant mentions a company she is not familiar with and which Khromenkov has never had any connection to.
After the news of the search at Khromenkov’s place, information also emerged about searches in at least four more Russian regions. Reportedly, they are all connected to a case against the founder of the “Revolt Centre” from Syktyvkar, a city in Russia’s north-west. We are continuing to monitor news about Khromenkov in our general post dedicated to the searches on 8 July.
- Svyatoslav Khromenkov campaigns against the torture of prisoners in Irkutsk region, Siberia. In 2019, his home was already searched—according to the human rights defender, officers threatened his mother (the lawyer and human rights defender Natalya Khromenkova) with prosecution under the article on violence against law enforcement officers (Art. 318, Russian Criminal Code). Khromenkov later learned that he had become a suspect in a criminal case that had originally been opened against someone else. In an interview with OVD-Info, he said he decided not to return to Russia for a while. He later returned to his hometown of Irkutsk. In 2023, unknown assailants shot at his parked car with a non-lethal weapon.