On 14 August, searches were conducted in places connected with religious movement New Generation in at least six Russian cities over the criminal case on an “undesirable” organisation, reports Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, citing a source.
According to their interlocutor, the searches were conducted in Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Krasnodar, Sochi, Kemerovo, and Novosibirsk. The source called New Generation a “radical religious cult” that “supports national battalion Azov”.
RIA Novosti also shared a video, in which a man introducing himself as Alexander Grishin, is being detained. Grishin is the pastor of the New Generation church in Novosibirsk. Law enforcement agents broke into his flat and pinned him to the floor, while a child’s cries could be heard off-screen.
According to media outlet Sibir.Realii, a search was also conducted in the church Love of Christ in Kemerovo. The outlet reports that the believers speculate that they could be charged over communicating with the pastor of the New Generation from Ukraine, Andriy Tischenko. During the search, their phones were confiscated.
In August 2021, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office deemed the international movement New Generation, the mother church of which is located in Latvia, to be an “undesirable” organisation on the Russian territory. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, their activity “poses a threat to the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation”.
New Generation is a Christian movement uniting over 400 communities from Western and Eastern Europe and the US. The mother church of the movement, headed by apostle Alexey Ledyaev, is located in Riga. On the church’s website, it reads that its main goal is the “establishment of Christian values in society, liberation of society from sinful way of life, alcohol and drug addictions”.
