RUSSIA: Interview with a nameless wife.

Jw.org, the official website of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, released a video entitled ‘Interviews: Five Sisters Recall Police Raids in Ufa, Russia‘ in October 2020. The interviews revolve around five Russian women who have experienced religious persecution for their beliefs. The women are not biological sisters, but rather women who are baptized as Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are sisters in a religious sense.

The full video is 5 minutes and 30 seconds long. Curiously, 3 minutes and 8 seconds of the interview is devoted to an unidentified woman whose husband’s name is Anatoly, or Tolya. Her testimony is interspersed with brief clips from four other women, all of whom are not identified.

For several reasons these interviews seem more like cult propaganda than examples of persecution. Firstly, we do not get to know the identity of the interviewees. We do not get to hear the questions from the interviewer. Thirdly, the interviews switch between interviewees so that its impossible to understand what is really going on. Fourthly, it is evident from the source material that a lot of what was discussed has been cut from the final clip; without knowing the full story, we are left with a lot of questions.

To help understand the interview of the main character, the nameless wife of Brother Vilitkevich, we have joined all the segments of her interview together. Please take the time to listen to her testimony and if you have any questions after listening, please make use of the comments section below.

Update:

Based on a comment from one of our readers, the name of the lady being interviewed is Alyona Vilitkevich. This can be ascertained by accessing JW-Russia.org, a website maintained by Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania.