Sergey Piskunov

Former coordinator of the "Golos" movement in the Kemerovo region. On 10 February 2024, he was detained in Kemerovo during a rally for the return of conscripted serviceman. He was taken to the settlement of Gramoteino, where he lives with his grandmother, to conduct a search in the case of organising an extremist community (part 1 of article 282.1 of the Criminal Code). Two days later, the activist was detained at the Veseloyarsk checkpoint (Russia's border with Kazakhstan) and taken to Rubtsovsk (Altai Krai). Denis Shakin, chairman of the Novokuznetsk branch of the Yabloko party, who accompanied him at the border, said at the time that, according to the law enforcers, Piskunov was being investigated under an extremist article. Later the same day it became known that a criminal case of non-violent lewd acts was opened against Piskunov: the investigation claims that he solicited intimate photos from a 13-year-old girl. Telegram channel Mash published a video in which Piskunov confirms that he corresponded with underage girls and asked them for photos and videos. At this point, we cannot consider the prosecution under this article as politically motivated.

The REN TV channel published a video where Piskunov says that he photographed graves of war dead in the Kemerovo region, received money for this from human rights activist Marina Litvinovich, and then the information he collected was included in the summary of the dead on the "Mediazona" website. "Mediazona" editor Dmitry Treshchanin confirmed in a commentary to "Meduza" that Piskunov took photos of the graves of the war dead and shared them with a team of volunteers, but he did not interact with "Mediazona", and Litvinovich has nothing to do with the publication or the volunteer project. On 15 February, Piskunov was taken into custody. The press office of Belovo City Court told "Mediazona" that the extremist article was not imputed to Piskunov "yet". On 1 March 2024, it became known that a case on repeated violation of the order of activities of a "foreign agent" (part 2 of Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code) was also initiated against Piskunov. The reason was that he "deliberately" did not mark his status in the materials he published - in particular, in a comment in "VKontakte". The cases were consolidated. On 30 January 2025, Piskunov was sentenced to four years and one month in a general regime penal colony.