75 Years Since Operation “North” — Descendants of Exiled Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Persecuted Just Like Their Ancestors

“To be expelled forever… Two hours to pack.” Exactly 75 years ago, on April 1, 1951, Operation “North,” the largest confession-based deportation in the history of the USSR, began. These fateful words, signed by Stalin, echoed in the homes of thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today in Russia, their children and grandchildren are being persecuted for their faith. They grew up on accounts of night raids, inhuman conditions in freight cars, and the uninhabited Siberian wilderness. For today’s prisoners of conscience, those stories are not merely family heritage—they are their reality.

Jehovah’s Witnesses — to the “North”

In the early 1940s, Soviet authorities accused Jehovah’s Witnesses of “anti-Soviet activity,” the trigger being their refusal to compromise Christian principles and to give unconditional support to party ideology.

Persecution came in waves. Between 1947 and 1950, at least 1,000 Witnesses were sentenced to lengthy terms in labor camps, and hundreds were deported beyond the Urals. The peak came in 1951. On April 1, the deportation of Jehovah’s Witnesses began from the Belorussian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldavian, and Estonian SSRs. A week later, on April 8, they came for believers in the Ukrainian SSR. In just a few days, 9,793 Jehovah’s Witnesses were expelled from these regions. Young and old, families with children—all were exiled to Tomsk and Irkutsk Regions and Krasnoyarsk Territory.

To date, Russian authorities have baselessly accused more than 940 Jehovah’s Witnesses of extremism, of “undermining the constitutional order and posing a threat to public security.” About a dozen and a half of them are descendants of those very deportees.

“So many in authority refuse to acknowledge the obvious”

In June 2022, 59 year old Yevgeniy Zinich from Krasnoyarsk was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for his faith. He is serving his sentence in the Siberian city of Surgut. As children, the believer’s parents—also Jehovah’s Witnesses—were exiled from Lviv Region to Khakassia under Operation “North.”

“Neither my mother nor her parents harbored anger toward their oppressors… Within the family they spoke about the cruel treatment they endured, but without hatred or a desire for revenge,” Yevgeniy told the court shortly before sentencing. “It deeply saddens my mother… that so many in authority refuse to acknowledge the obvious—that my faith excludes extremism. She [who will turn 87 in April] very much hopes to live to see the day I am acquitted.”

Yevgeniy’s wife, Mariya, will not live to see it. “According to doctors, the stress caused by my criminal prosecution was among the reasons for her premature death,” Yevgeniy says. Mariya’s parents also lived through deportation.

“It feels like we’ve taken up the baton”

Aleksandr and Mikhail Shevchuk—brothers from Saransk—are Jehovah’s Witnesses in the fourth generation. A few years apart, criminal cases were opened against both, resulting in real prison terms: Aleksandr served two years, while Mikhail, sentenced to six and a half years, is being held in a pretrial detention center awaiting appeal. Repression in their family dates back to the 1940s.

“First, our great grandfathers—back when they lived in Western Ukraine—were sentenced to ten years in a colony merely for professing the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Aleksandr Shevchuk recalls. “Then in 1951 their wives and children were exiled to Siberia. In the 1970s, both grandfathers were sent to prison simply for being Jehovah’s Witnesses. Later, our father was sentenced for refusing military service.”

According to Mikhail, their family’s story of steadfastness helped him face the persecution directed at him personally with dignity. “Grandfather even called me and joked: ‘Well, it’s your turn now,’” Mikhail recalls. “It feels like we’ve taken up that baton.”

“I want to keep walking the path my parents walked”

Aleksandr Ursu is now 86. As a child, he was exiled from Moldova together with his parents and other relatives. He remembers: “It was July 6, 1949. I was nine and a half. It was still dark when they woke us up. When they burst in, we saw they were soldiers… They came in and read out that they were evicting them to an eternal settlement. Two soldiers began to tear things from the walls that were on the walls, and put them together: take it, because it will be useful to you with you... They took us to the border of Kurgan and Tyumen Regions. To the most remote backwoods.”

Aleksandr now lives in Crimea. On November 18, 2018, a special forces unit burst into the home where he lived with his wife and his son’s family. Force was used against elderly Aleksandr.

Viktor Ursu, Aleksandr’s 60 year old son, is currently imprisoned. He was sentenced to six years in a penal colony for his religious beliefs. His address to the court before sentencing drew numerous historical parallels: “Lacking the ability—or the desire—to condemn believers for their convictions, they pinned labels on them: Bolshevists, imperialists, spies… Now they are trying to pin the label of extremism on me.”

“I want to keep walking the path my parents, my grandmothers and grandfathers, and many dear to me walked,” Viktor concluded. “They were willing to hold to what they knew to be true, no matter the cost.”

“Renounce your faith in exchange for an end to criminal prosecution”

As in Soviet times, modern day believers can avoid prosecution if they sign a document stating that they are no longer Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yaroslav Kalin, born in exile and a Jehovah’s Witness in the fourth generation, described the circumstances of his arrest in the fall of 2021 in an addressing to the court: “When I was brought to the police station, I was offered to renounce my faith in exchange for the cessation of criminal prosecution. In effect, the investigator himself confirmed that my ‘guilt’ lies not in committing a crime.”

In March 2024, Yaroslav and eight of his fellow believers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Kalin received seven years. Before sentencing, he spent more than two years in solitary confinement. “I spent 840 days in ‘solitary’—in the worst, inhuman conditions. I thank Jehovah that he allowed me not to lose my mind, that I stand before you alive and healthy,” he said during the court hearings.

In court, Yaroslav thanked not only God. He expressed gratitude to court staff and to the prosecutor for their respectful treatment.

“Having suffered repression, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not become embittered and do not cease to be Christians. There are no handcuffs or bars that can shackle genuine faith,” commented Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a representative of the European Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Those who faced repression—then and now—are often among the first to hurry to help new prisoners of conscience.”

“I received letters of support from children and grandchildren of victims of repression,” said Yekaterina Pegasheva of Yoshkar Ola in court. “They were among the very first to support me when I was held in a pretrial detention center because they know and understand what it’s like.”

Five years ago, shortly after the 70th anniversary of Operation “North,” the court gave Yekaterina a suspended sentence of six and a half years.

“Guided by a sense of repentance”

On March 14, 1996, the President of the Russian Federation signed Decree No. 378, “On Measures for the Rehabilitation of Clergy and Believers Who Became Victims of Unfounded Repression.” “In order to restore justice and the lawful rights of citizens of Russia to freedom of conscience and religion, guided by a sense of repentance,” the Russian state recognized that the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses had been unfounded. Many families still keep certificates identifying them as victims of repression and receive benefits on that basis.