Russians are being arrested for photographing soldiers’ graves. Some face treason charges.

Russian security officials have stepped up demonstrative detentions of people photographing graves at cemeteries, Dmitry Treshchanin, an editor at the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona, said, and have forced residents in several regions to record video apologies afterward.

Treshchanin said people have recently started receiving offers of money — purportedly from Mediazona — for photographs of graves belonging to Russians killed in the war. He said scammers have shown interest in this data and have repeatedly tried to buy unpublished databases from the outlet.

Among other uses, the photographs are used to “con” relatives, Treshchanin said, though he did not detail how the scheme works. He said that if investigators find such photographs on someone’s phone along with correspondence with whoever ordered them, officers from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) could bring treason charges against that person.

The case would then be built as if the assignment had come from Ukrainian intelligence services. Security officials may also send out these offers themselves to boost their own case-clearance rates.

A criminal case on treason charges was opened late last week against a Yaroslavl resident. Prosecutors say he had systematically photographed and filmed graves of Russian servicemen since October 2024 and sent the material to Ukrainian intelligence services.

Mediazona says case files for at least two treason cases have appeared on the Yaroslavl Regional Court’s website over the past month. In late June, several Tomsk region residents were detained in a similar case, though their exact number was not disclosed.

Mediazona, working with the BBC’s Russian Service, has been tracking the number of Russians killed in the war. The outlet stresses that while it once did ask volunteers to send photos of fresh graves at Russian cemeteries, it now strongly advises against doing so.