Voronezh-style reprisal. Why Voronezh security forces tortured local activists. Details of the raids

On 22 April, eight Voronezh activists were searched. Seven of them were searched in the new case of Grigory Severin for discrediting the army. He is accused of having an anti-war conversation with cellmates while serving his sentence in the first criminal case. As witnesses, searches were conducted in the homes of people who were at large at the time: Fyodor Orlov, Alexander Zheltukhin, Nadezhda and Vladimir Toborovets, Nadezhda Belova, and Pavel Sychev. Three of them spoke of beatings and torture, Alexander Zheltukhin is in the hospital with eight broken ribs, pneumothorax, and five damaged vertebrae. He said that they put a bag over his head and beat him with a stun gun. Orlov and Belova’s husband also have traces of electric shock, claiming they did not resist the security forces. Nadezhda Belova told how she was demanded to record a video supporting Putin, forcing her to choose who would be beaten after refusing: her husband or her twenty-year-old son, whom the officers threatened to send to Ukraine. Separately, the security forces demanded that the Free People of Voronezh channel cease its activities.