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The Central District Court of Volgograd has today remanded in custody Mikhail Serenko, the former head of the city’s Traktorozavodsky district, ex-city council deputy, publicist and political analyst. This was reported by outlet V1.ru. The decision on pre-trial detention was also announced by the United Press Service of the Volgograd regional courts.
News of Serenko’s detention emerged on 22 August. Searches were conducted at his residence. The court ordered two months’ pre-trial detention for the political analyst, until 18 September of this year.
The first charge brought against Mikhail Serenko is the rehabilitation of Nazism online (subpara. “v,” part 2, article 354.1 of the Criminal Code). Investigators allege that in March this year the publicist posted texts on his account “containing signs of the rehabilitation of Nazism, including denial of facts established by the International Military Tribunal’s verdict.”
According to V1.ru journalists, this may relate to posts dated 21 March 2025. These discussed events linked to the bombing of Stalingrad on 23 August 1942.
These posts are currently unavailable on the “Island of Freedom” channel, which is linked to Serenko. However, Volgograd civic activist Anton Shchepetnov clarified that those posts “were riddled with gross factual errors.”
“The 4th Air Fleet under Richthofen carried out over 2,000 sorties on 23 August, not 40. The bombing began during the day, not in the evening. <…> The Panzer II tanks were not in service with Germany’s 16th ‘Westphalian’ Panzer Division; their main tanks were Panzer III and IV models. Second-series tanks were part of von Heim’s 48th Panzer Corps, which joined the battle during Operation Uranus, and in any case, ‘Twos’ were there in only very limited numbers. I have no desire to unpack this nonsense any further. I don’t want to draw far-reaching conclusions. The investigation will sort it out,” wrote Shchepetnov.
Investigators also allege that in August–September 2024, the man “as administrator, moderator and author of one of the channels,” published material containing “defamatory information” about a Volgograd resident. Later, the publicist is said to have demanded 300,000 rubles (approx. US$3,250) from the subject of the article in exchange for blocking further publications. The Volgograd resident refused to pay.
According to investigators, Serenko began posting negative content and contacted the subject of the stories again in February this year, demanding 350,000 rubles (approx. US$3,800). As a result, the publicist now also faces charges of large-scale extortion (subpara. “g,” part 2, article 163 of the Criminal Code).
Serenko’s daughter Polina told “Ostorozhno, Novosti” (“Caution, News”) that, during his detention, law enforcement officers demanded on camera that the publicist “confess that he owns the Telegram channel ‘Island of Freedom.’”
The security officers showed the man a post about problems with public transport in the Volgograd settlement of GES. The investigator claimed that Mikhail Serenko and blogger Alexei Ulyanov “were paid a large sum of money for this publication.”
Konstantin Kalachyov, former Volgograd deputy mayor who appointed Serenko as head of the Traktorozavodsky district, said after the publicist’s detention that the political analyst “was most likely engaged in information blackmail.”
“He’s pro-Putin, a Soviet and Russian patriot. An arsehole. But this definitely doesn’t qualify as the rehabilitation of Nazism. It’s sad,” wrote Kalachyov, who later deleted his post.
Activists from the local project “Dozor in Volgograd” said they knew Serenko as “an ambiguous figure.”
“He often sharply and bitingly criticised city officials, but on the other hand did not shy away from fakes, bullying, sensationalist headlines and unscrupulous allegations, and worked closely with police representatives, openly fulfilling political orders. However, judging this situation from our perspective, we cannot recall any justifications of Nazism either personally from the publicist, on his website, or on his Telegram channel,” the Dozor in Volgograd authors added.
6 August: A criminal case was opened against publicist Mikhail Serenko for the illegal public display of pornography on the internet (subpara. “b,” part 3, article 242 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the Volgograd region Investigative Committee. The new case has been merged with the previous one for joint investigation.
According to the investigation, this year Serenko posted a photo on his Telegram channel which, according to a forensic expert, “is considered pornographic material.” The Investigative Committee press service did not specify what photo this was.
11 August: Yet another criminal case was opened against Mikhail Serenko—on charges of defamation, connected to allegations of a crime against sexual integrity or a serious or especially serious offence (part 5, article 128.1 of the Criminal Code). The “Dozor in Volgograd” channel reported this.
The specific reason for this case is not yet known.
- In June 2023, Serenko was detained on suspicion of assisting Yevgeny Prigozhin’s armed mutiny and Wagner PMC. He said that he was “questioned as a witness” and asked about contacts with the Wagner group. He was released later.
- Following his recent detention, Mikhail Serenko said that he was taken from home without being allowed to take his medicine. He says he “suffers from a number of serious illnesses, including a brain neoplasm,” and that contact with his doctor is “vital.”