A Christian preacher, Khristolyub Vegan, who had been convicted over a YouTube video, has died in a penal colony.

In Correctional Colony No. 2 in Voronezh, a Christian preacher and blogger, Khristolyub Vegan, has died. His father told OVD-Info about the incident.

Today, a security officer from IK-2 phoned the man to inform him that Khristolyub had died. The FSIN employee asked him to come on Monday, 20 April, to collect his son’s body. He refused to tell him the cause and circumstances of Khristolyub’s death.

The preacher had been held in this colony since January. He was transferred there after a court decision to toughen his regime from an open prison to a general regime colony. In IK-2, the preacher was held under strict conditions.

Khristolyub’s father says that his son did not complain about any health problems. They last spoke by phone a few days ago.

In Penal Colony No. 10, where he was held prior to January, Khristolyub was, from his very first days there, sent to a punishment cell for alleged violations, under various pretexts.

“As soon as I arrived, they immediately gave me five days in solitary confinement. And just now—another 15. For no reason at all, just like that. I agreed to everything and did not object to anything. Yet they still gave me five, and starting today—15 more days of being shut in, without being let out at all. Allegedly because at some moment I didn’t keep my back straight,” he recounted.

Khristolyub feared that they intended to “ruin” him in the colony.

According to the court ruling, he was meant to arrive independently at the open prison colony on 13 October 2025. Instead, he held an anti-war protest that day. After the demonstration, he was detained and arrested for forcible transfer to the place of his sentence.

• In February 2025, Khristolyub was sentenced to three years in an open prison colony on charges of offending religious feelings (Part 1, Article 148 of the Criminal Code) and rehabilitating Nazism (Subparagraph “v” of Part 2 and Part 4 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code).
• He was charged under the first article over a video making crude remarks about Islam. The charge of rehabilitating Nazism was brought due to statements on the recruitment of prisoners to be sent to fight in Ukraine, on the glorification of Soviet soldiers, and on their crimes against civilians.
• On his YouTube channel, Khristolyub also posted videos condemning the war in Ukraine and criticising the Russian authorities and Vladimir Putin. In his final statement, the preacher noted that for three years he “used all my resources, effort, means and opportunities to try to stop the ‘Rashist-Ukrainian’ war.”