On December 21, 2020, the Leninskiy District Court of Rostov-on-Don convicted Brother Semyon Baybak and imposed a three-and-a-half-year suspended prison sentence. He does not have to go to prison at this time.

During Semyon’s closing comments to the court a few days earlier, he quoted a well-known Russian human rights activist who said: “They [Jehovah’s Witnesses] are being persecuted, but they smile.” Semyon then affirmed: “That’s the truth. I’m not feeling despondency or hatred.” He then read 2 Corinthians 4:8, 9, applying it to himself and his fellow Witnesses in Russia: “We are hard-pressed in every way, but not cramped beyond movement; we are perplexed, but not absolutely with no way out; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed.”