Sochi-based believers Kuzichkin and Popov were sentenced to imprisonment but were released due to having, in effect, completed their sentence

On December 18, 2020, Yuriy Pilipenko, a judge of the Khostinsky district court, found two Sochi residents guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist organization because of their religion. Vyacheslav Popov spent one year and two months in the pre-trial detention center, and Nikolay Kuzichkin spent 6.5 months in the pre-trial detention center plus eight months under house arrest.

The time the believers have already spent in custody corresponds to their sentences: 1 year and 1 month for Kuzichkin and 1 year and 10 months for Popov. Vyacheslav Popov will remain in the pre-trial detention center until the sentence comes into force.

The criminal case in Sochi became known on October 10, 2019, when groups of law enforcement officers conducted searches in 36 homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Sochi. Armed special forces broke down the doors, broke in through the balcony. Both young and old were laid face down on the floor.

The case was investigated for 12 months by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. All this time Kuzichkin and Popov remained under arrest. The health condition of 69-year-old piano tuner Nikolay Kuzichkin in pre-trial detention approached a critical state. Lack of treatment for life-threatening diseases caused him to lose 24 kilograms in just a month and a half. In April 2020, the Krasnodar Regional Court ruled to release Kuzichkin from the pre-trial detention center under house arrest. Vyacheslav Popov's detention was extended 14 times.

The ban and liquidation of Jehovah's Witnesses legal entities in 2017 have long since escalated into real persecution of ordinary believers, most of whom have never been members of the liquidated legal entities. This legal "collision," as the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation put it, is crippling the lives of hundreds of people. Recently the number of criminal cases has increased significantly, with dozens of men and women behind bars. The believers await the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), where they have filed a complaint.