UPDATE: Moscow Court Voids Pre-Ban Property Transfers, Hands 123 Jehovah's Witnesses Assets to the Russian State
The Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow granted a claim by Russia's Prosecutor General's Office on 31 July 2026, declaring void sixty donation agreements signed between August 2016 and early April 2017 and transferring 63 buildings and 60 land plots into state ownership. Prosecutors argued the transfers were made to keep the property from passing to the state when the organization was liquidated, and the court accepted that case; Kommersant and Pravo.ru report the defendants were Witness-linked entities in seven European countries and the United States, while other outlets described only a Swedish entity. Russian courts undid a Witness property transfer in much the same shape in 2017, against the organization's St Petersburg headquarters, and Russia has legislated against enforcing the European Court of Human Rights judgment that found the 2017 ban and liquidation unlawful. Jehovah's Witnesses have since responded, calling the confiscation defiance of that judgment, putting the assessed value of the 123 properties at about 415 million rubles, and saying the European entities that owned them were refused permission to take part in the 2017 liquidation proceedings.
