Khvostova Irina

Name: Khvostova Irina Vladimirovna
Date of Birth: March 15, 1992
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (2)
Current restrictions: suspended sentence
Sentence: punishment in the form of 3 years of imprisonment, with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to participation in the work of public religious organizations and associations for a term of 3 years, with restriction of liberty for a term of 10 months, a sentence of imprisonment shall be considered suspended with a probationary period of 2 years

Biography

Persecution of civilians on religious grounds continues in Magadan. Searches and interrogations began in March 2018. People are accused of "extremism" just because they read the Bible, pray and sing songs together. Among them is 27-year-old Irina Khvostova. What do we know about her?

Irina was born in the city of Stakhanov (Lugansk region, Ukraine) in 1992 in a religious family, her parents profess Orthodoxy. Irina has a younger sister. Since childhood, the girl was drawn to art, to self-education. She read a lot, studied piano at a children's music school. And today her craving for beauty, as well as her desire to learn, has not weakened: Irina loves music and learns to play the guitar. Later the family moved to Odessa. There, Irina graduated from the Polytechnic University with a degree in chemical technology. Now he works in an environmental laboratory.

In Odessa, the girl got acquainted with the teachings of the Bible. "Since childhood, I believed in God," says Irina, "and wondered why so many misfortunes happen to people around the world. I haven't read the Bible before. Studying it helped me to see the great wisdom of this book, to find the answer to my question and to find the most beautiful hope for the future."

Due to the hostilities in Ukraine, the whole family had to move to Magadan. By that time, she was already married. Irina met her future husband Vadim at school. He is fond of cars and their modeling from paper. Irina and Vadim love to get together with friends in nature, cook kebabs.

When they came to the couple with a search, Irina's younger sister was visiting them. She experienced a great shock. She does not share her sister's religious beliefs, but she sincerely does not understand what the dreaded word "extremism" has to do with Irina and her friends. "These are peaceful people who respect the opinions and views of others," she says. Irina's husband is completely perplexed by the criminal prosecution of his wife.

Case History

After a series of searches in Magadan in May 2018, Konstantin Petrov, Yevgeniy Zyablov and Sergey Yerkin were placed in a pretrial detention center. On the same day in Khabarovsk, the home of Ivan Puyda was searched. He was arrested and taken 1,600 km to a pretrial detention center in Magadan. The believers spent 2 to 4 months behind bars, and then ended up under house arrest. In March 2019, the FSB conducted another series of searches. The number of defendants in the case has reached 13, including 6 women and elderly. The investigator deemed holding peaceful meetings for worship as organizing, participating in and financing the activity of an extremist organization. In almost 4 years of investigation, the case materials against the 13 believers has grown to 66 volumes. The case went to court in March 2022. At the hearings, it became clear that the case was based on the testimony of a secret witness – an FSB informant who made covert recordings of peaceful meetings for worship. In March 2024, the believers were given suspended sentences ranging from 3 to 7 years, and the court of appeal later upheld this verdict.
Timeline
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