Khamatshin Maksim

Name: Khamatshin Maksim Rinatovich
Date of Birth: June 20, 1996
Current status: convicted person
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation: 282.2 (1)
Time spent in prison: 36 day in a pre-trial detention
Current restrictions: detention center
Sentence: imprisonment for a term of 6 years in a general regime penal colony, with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to leadership and participation in the work of religious organizations for a period of 6 years, with restriction of freedom for a period of 1 year
Currently held in: Detention Center No.3 for Chelyabinsk Region
Address for correspondence: Khamatshin Maksim Rinatovich, born 1996, Detention Center No.3 for Chelyabinsk Region, Ul. Artilleriyskaya, 66 A, Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk Region, 456205

Letters of support can be sent by regular mail or through the «zonatelecom».

Note: discussing topics related to criminal prosecution is not allowed in letters; languages other than Russian will not pass.

Biography

The criminal prosecution of Maksim Khamatshin, an electrical fitter, began in the summer of 2023. In 2025, he was sentenced to six years in a penal colony.

Maksim was born in June 1996 in Siberia, in the city of Biryusinsk (Irkutsk region), in the family of a doctor and a railway worker. As a child, he loved to play football. For a long time he went skiing, was fond of collecting postage stamps.

After school, Maksim graduated from the Kansk Polytechnic College, having received the specialty of an adjuster of control and measuring devices and automation. He worked in a brick factory, and before his imprisonment he worked as an electrician as a self-employed.

The biblical norms instilled by his mother touched Maksim's heart, and in his teenage years he began to deeply study the Bible on his own. "It was bitter for me to see when people suffer," Maksim recalls. "But I learned from the Bible how God will make people's lives easier."

Peaceful views prompted Maksim to undergo alternative civilian service (ACS) instead of military service—he worked as a nuese in the surgery unit of the Chelyabinsk Regional Hospital from 2017 to 2019.

In Chelyabinsk, Maksim met his future wife Adelina, and in August 2019 they got married. His wife shares his views on life and has been familiar with Bible teachings since childhood. Adelina works as a pharmacist. The couple has many common hobbies: they love to spend time with friends, play board games, have picnics in nature and sing songs. Maksim still goes in for sports, loves football, volleyball, skiing and is fond of studying construction technologies.

The criminal prosecution had a strong impact on both the couple—they no longer felt safe in their own apartment. Parents and other relatives consider the sentence unfair. Maksim's mother had an aggravated chronic illness due to her worries.

Maksim and Adelina do not lose heart and, according to them, felt the great support and love of their friends. In his final plea in court, Maksim added: "It is a great honor for me to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. And no persecution can force me to renounce my convictions."

Case History

In September 2022, Maksim Khamatshin’s house was searched as part of the case of his fellow believer, Yevgeniy Bushev. In June 2023, Maksim himself became a defendant in a criminal case for his faith in God. A month later, investigator Chepenko, who has led at least a dozen criminal cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Chelyabinsk, placed Khamatshin under a recognizance agreement. At the end of the year, the believer was added to the Rosfinmonitoring list. In May 2024, the criminal case went to court. The charge is based on video and audio recordings of meetings of the FSB informant with Jehovah’s Witnesses. The prosecutor requested the court send Khamatshin to a penal colony for 7 years. In April 2025, the verdict was issued — 6 years in a penal colony.
Timeline
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