Summary: On October 14, 2025, the FSB initiated a criminal case against 23 members of the Anti-War Committee of Russia (AWC) for violent seizure of power (Article 278 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and organization of or participation in a terrorist community (parts 1 and 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The case was initiated, among others, against Evgeny Koonin as a member of the AWC. According to the FSB’s version, the AWC serves as a platform uniting politicians, scientists, publicists, and businesspeople who emigrated from Russia and oppose the military operation in Ukraine. The committee also sets as its goal “opposition to the regime of the President of the Russian Federation as a direct threat to humanity,” reports Kommersant. The FSB claims that the committee planned a “violent change of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation” and also sought to unite “diverse protest forces of the protest community.”

Evgeny Koonin is the head of the Evolutionary Genomics Laboratory at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a member of the coordinating council of T-invariant. Candidate of Biological Sciences.

Sources: FSB, Meduza.