Ivan Repin, former head of the department for combating extremist organizations within the regional Directorate for Countering Extremism of the Russian Interior Ministry (Center “E”) in Yaroslavl Oblast, has complained that he was beaten by police during his arrest. The report comes from the human rights project Public Verdict. Repin himself had earlier been accused of beating a detained anti-war activist.
Repin was arrested in October 2024. At the time, he held the rank of police captain. He was charged with receiving a large bribe. According to Meduza, Repin’s brother, Aleksandr Repin — who remains deputy head of the regional criminal investigation department pending trial — was also arrested.
Ivan Repin believes he was detained at the request of a local criminal figure. According to Public Verdict, Repin claims that during the arrest, police officers Anton Kovalenko and Artem Fedyukin severely beat him and choked him with a cloth until he lost consciousness. Doctors documented abrasions, head and chest bruises, hematomas, and ruptured eardrums, which caused temporary hearing loss. Repin’s former colleagues, Kovalenko and Fedyukin, had previously been mentioned in a complaint filed by a couple from Uglich who alleged that the officers beat them while demanding information about an acquaintance.
Repin himself has also been implicated in previous torture complaints against security forces. In particular, in September 2022, he and other Center “E” officers took part in the arrest of Yaroslavl lawyer and environmental activist Andrey Akimov, who was accused of “discrediting” the army. Akimov stated that police beat him, slammed him against a wall, and hung him by handcuffs. He named Repin among those who tortured him.
