A Moscow court has sentenced Baptist pastor Yuri Sipko, who condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to five years in a penal colony in absentia.

The news was reported by Mediazona.

Sipko, 74, a former vice-president of the Baptist World Alliance, was charged with spreading “fake news” about the Russian military. Prosecutors had sought a six-year prison sentence.

The criminal case against Sipko became public in August 2023. The charges stemmed from his participation in a livestream in March 2022, during which he condemned the invasion of Ukraine.

“This is clearly an act of aggression, carried out with the full might of our military arsenal to destroy Ukraine. They have killed tens of thousands of people and left cities, hospitals and schools in ruins. They have turned Ukrainian soil, a flourishing, fragrant land, into a graveyard,” the pastor said.

Yuri Sipko left Russia in 2023. He was subsequently placed on a wanted list, and in May 2026 a court ordered his arrest in absentia.

We previously reported that religious communities in Russia have faced mounting pressure since February 2022. Clergy have been defrocked for praying for peace, ecclesiastical and secular courts have reinforced each other’s actions, and state authorities and church institutions have jointly punished those who refuse to justify the war.

As LF previously reported, the Russian Orthodox Church has been coordinating the persecution of anti-war clergy with the Federal Security Service (FSB). Evidence of this was published by religious scholar and former editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate Sergei Chapnin in his book Religious Communities Under Pressure: Documenting Religious Persecution in Russia, 2022–2026.

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