A Russian anti-war activist who has been sentenced to prison in her homeland has been held in custody in Armenia for more than a month due to an extradition request from Moscow, as reported by the media on Wednesday.
Lilya Manyukhina, aged 29, along with two other activists, was convicted in 2023 for aggravated robbery stemming from an incident the previous year in Moscow, where they allegedly took a gun from an individual who confronted them while they were putting up anti-war posters.
Manyukhina and another activist fled Russia in 2024 after serving part of her two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, relocating to Armenia.
As per the Armenian news outlet CivilNet, Manyukhina was detained in the South Caucasus on August 30 following the extradition request from Russia.
Reports indicate that Armenian courts initially ordered her detention for 40 days, which was later extended by two months upon request from the justice ministry.
Manyukhina’s attorney contends that the charges against her in Russia are politically driven and that extradition would subject her to an unfair judicial process and potential torture. Human rights organizations in Armenia have urged the authorities to reassess Yerevan’s legal responsibilities toward Russia, especially in light of Russia’s history of human rights abuses and its expulsion from the Council of Europe.
Manyukhina is currently awaiting a decision regarding her application for political asylum in Armenia.
In recent months, Armenian authorities have reportedly turned down at least seven Russian extradition requests on political grounds.
Manyukhina, alongside fellow activists Kirill Timofeyev and Anastasia Polyakova, was initially detained in Moscow in April 2022.
In October of last year, a Moscow court sentenced Polyakova to six years in prison for charges related to robbery or weapon extortion, but this was reduced to a five-year suspended sentence by the Moscow City Court in May 2025.
The human rights group Memorial in Russia has classified all three activists as political prisoners.
