Volgograd political scientist detained in case of public justification of Nazism

Political scientist, former deputy of the Volgograd City Duma Mikhail Serenko has been detained in a case of public justification of Nazism and extortion.

The regional Investigative Committee announced the detention of an “Internet channel administrator” in Volgograd today, without disclosing the name of the detainee or the name of the channel. The man is suspected of extortion and public justification of Nazism, the department claims.

The investigation believes that in August-September 2024, the administrator and author of the channel published material with incriminating information about a resident of Volgograd, after which he demanded 300 thousand rubles from the man “to stop distributing defamatory publications.” The victim refused to pay. Posts with information defamatory of the victim were published in the channel from September 2024 to February 2025, after which the man received another call with an offer to pay to stop the publications, but this time 350 thousand rubles, according to a message on the website of the regional Investigative Committee.

The detainee is charged with publicly justifying Nazism in connection with publications posted online in March 2025. A psychological and linguistic examination concluded that the texts contain “a set of signs of rehabilitation of Nazism, including in the form of denial of the facts established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal.”

The suspect was detained by officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, and the Russian National Guard; his home and that of his assistant were searched, with electronic media being seized. The investigation intends to petition for the arrest of the detainee.

The detainee is political scientist and former deputy of the Volgograd City Duma Mikhail Serenko, who was the founder of the city publication "Island of Freedom", the V1 publication reported. Serenko was associated with the Telegram channel of the same name, which has 13 thousand subscribers to the messenger, although he himself denied belonging to the channel.

According to Mikhail Serenko's daughter, he was forced to confess on camera to administering an anonymous Telegram channel, was not allowed to contact a lawyer and was not allowed to take pills from home. One of the witnesses at today's search participated as a witness in the search of Serenko, which took place in June 2023, reports "Beware, News".

Mikhail Serenko is a political scientist, publicist and teacher, in the past he headed the administration of the Traktorozavodsky district of Volgograd and was a deputy of the Volgograd City Duma.

"Caucasian Knot" also wrote that in June 2023, security forces in Volgograd searched Mikhail Serenko's apartment, after which he was interrogated as a witness in the criminal case of Yevgeny Prigozhin's armed rebellion.

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