In early September, shortly before Russia’s single voting day, a new repressive campaign began against followers of healer Svetlana Lada-Rus, previously known as Peunova. Over three weeks, security forces reportedly carried out about two dozen searches and opened three criminal cases.
The article says the reasons for this pressure may be twofold. First, small groups of her supporters are described as among the last open opponents of the current authorities. Second, the pressure is linked to the sharp public statements made by Lada-Rus herself.
In 2012, she tried to run in Russia’s presidential election, but, the text says, the Central Election Commission blocked her nomination. From that same period, Peunova, who later took the surname Lada-Rus, has accused Vladimir Putin and the Russian security services of terrorism and criminal negligence.
After the invasion of Ukraine, the article says, she went further and claimed that Putin was acting in the interests of foreign governments and the Jewish religious movement Chabad. Against that backdrop, the text states, Lada-Rus left Russia long ago and has been living in deep hiding.
Since 2016, she has been on the federal wanted list, named in several criminal cases, and designated a “foreign agent”. Her supporters had also faced pressure earlier. In 2023, Samara activist Olga Tsukanova was labeled a “foreign agent,” and two years later she was sentenced to 19 months of corrective labor for failing to comply with the duties imposed on a “foreign agent.”
In March 2025, two activists from Khabarovsk region, Marina Tokareva and Natalya Ignatyeva, received prison sentences in a case on participation in an “extremist organization”: 2.5 years and 5.5 years respectively.