The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has filed legal proceedings seeking to outlaw the “international Satanism movement” as an extremist group, the state news agency TASS reported on Friday.
The lawsuit, which is now slated for a court hearing on July 22, marks the second time Russian authorities have moved to ban an “extremist movement” that does not seem to exist. Russia outlawed the “international LGBT movement” as extremist in November 2023.
The Prosector General’s Office claims that the Satanic group it is now seeking to ban is also known as the “international Satanists’ movement.” While various occult movements and cults linked to Satanism do exist around the world, Meduza was unable to find any open-source evidence of an “international Satanism movement.”
Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill first floated the idea of designating Satanism as an illegal “extremist movement” in January 2025.
