‘Yes, I regret going’: Russian IT specialist returned to Russia to visit his ailing father and was charged with treason over €30 sent to his ex-girlfriend in Ukraine.

A court in Russia's Komi Republic sentenced philosophy instructor Nikolai Zyuzev to seven years in a penal colony for treason after he returned from Lithuania to his home village in 2025. Russia's FSB said an educational project he ran about the country's Indigenous peoples, funded by foreign grants, was aimed at undermining Russian sovereignty.

IT specialist Loshchinin, who had lived in Europe since the 1990s, rode his motorcycle back to Russia in 2025 to see his father after a heart attack. Border guards found Ukrainian contacts on his phone; he was later charged with treason over a 30-euro transfer he had sent an ex-girlfriend in Ukraine in 2022 and says he now expects 18 years in prison for refusing to admit guilt.

Memorial has documented at least 40 similar cases since 2022, including a water tower renovator detained after bringing his infant daughter to meet relatives, a singer who returned voluntarily and got five and a half years, and a woman detained at the airport while visiting her mother, who has cancer.

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