On November 29, in Kropotkin, Krasnodar Region, Igor Volosevich, a participant in the invasion of Ukraine, threatened a beer store that Alexander Shabanov, an anti-war activist and former locomotive depot engineer at Kavkazskaya station, had left for his wife’s parents. Shabanov himself told ASTRA about this.
According to the family, Volosevich said that if Shabanov returned to Russia, he would “break his arms and legs” and that he “would not live here for three days.” The man also claimed that he was able to “close the shop” of Shabanov’s parents and “deal” with them. In addition, according to his family, he threatened to “put Shabanov in a black bag and drown him in the Kuban.” According to the Shabanovs, he also hinted at possible reprisals against his parents, claiming that he would “deal with” them.
When watching the surveillance footage, the Shabanovs noticed that Volosevich was adjusting his sleeve several times and holding an object inside it. According to the family, from the characteristic movements, it can be assumed that he had a knife in his sleeve. Alexander Shabanov said that the conflict with Volosevich has been going on for many years. According to him, a former colleague repeatedly contacted the police with statements against him, both on work issues and after Shabanov began to publicly express his anti—war position.
The Shabanov family reports that they fear for their safety after the incident.
Shabanov is a father of three children and a former locomotive depot engineer at the Kavkazskaya station in the Krasnodar Territory. In 2022, he was forced to resign after he refused to ride trains with the letters “Z” and “V”. “I tore off these letters “Z” and “V” from the locomotives, stopped work, did not accept the locomotives, delayed the movement for 3-4 hours. Sometimes he completely disrupted shunting work for 12 hours — he relied on instructions, which there were plenty of, rejected locomotives and did not accept them, that is, he staged a real sabotage,” Alexander said in an interview with ASTRA. After threats and attacks from the authorities and the police, he and his family left for France, where he sought asylum.
After publishing on ASTRA, he won the case in Strasbourg. In February 2025, the European Court of Human Rights considered more than 160 complaints of harassment for “discrediting” the army and distributing so-called military “fakes” and ruled that the Russian authorities had violated article 10 of the European Convention on Freedom of Expression.
Judging by the databases merged into the network, which ASTRA studied, 44-year-old Igor Volosevich had previously been convicted of beatings. He did not answer ASTRA’s questions himself.
