Mikhail Loshchinin

After spending many years in Europe, he travelled to Russia by motorcycle to visit his father, who had suffered a heart attack. In June 2025, he was detained at the border in the Pskov region. His phone was confiscated for inspection. According to his mother, he spent some time at the border checkpoint waiting for his phone and passport to be returned. When he asked the border guards where he could buy water, they told him to follow them on his motorcycle. Along the way, they suddenly turned off the road and detained him on formal grounds for crossing a border zone.

After that, Loshchinin was kept under guard — that is, without any formal procedural status — in a hotel in the town of Pytalovo until 2 August 2025. He was then taken to Stary Oskol (Belgorod region), where he was placed in custody on charges of high treason for allegedly transferring money in 2022 to a female friend who was living in Ukraine. According to his mother, the reason for the prosecution may have been that the woman "had an avatar featuring Ukrainian symbols", although at the time of the transfer in 2022 she did not yet have such an avatar.

Loshchinin later told his lawyer that he had been placed in a specialised facility for Ukrainian prisoners, where he was subjected to torture. According to his mother, he was beaten and stripped naked. His glasses were also taken away. He was forced to sign a document stating that he had “freely travelled around Russia” until 21 August, his mother told Mediazona. Later, Loshchinin was transferred to a pre-trial detention centre in the Pskov region.

You can read more about politically persecuted people in the Telegram channel OVD-Info LIVE and our database of politically motivated criminal prosecutions.