He Left Russia with Steinbeck in His Rucksack

Gregory Kunis. Photo: Bumaga via Mr. Kunis’s Facebook page

Gregory Kunis, cofounder of iGooods and former owner of the newspaper Moy Rayon (“My District”), has left Russia following the prosecution’s appeal against the verdict in the Anti-Corruption Foundation donations case, he announced on his Facebook page last night.

Kunis writes that on 12 December, the prosecution lodged an appeal against his sentence on the grounds that the punishment was “excessively lenient.” On 8 December, the Petrograd District Court fined him 350,000 rubles in connection with the donations case, our correspondent reported. Kunis was released from custody in the courtroom. The prosecution had sought a six-year prison sentence in a medium security facility.

The court’s website states that, on 15 December, the prosecution’s appeal was taken under consideration. Kunis decided “not to tempt fate” and fled Russia.

“My motherland let me go carrying a small rucksack, which contained a laptop, a change of clothes, a book (Steinbeck), and toiletries. I’m not angry with her. After all, she did let me go.”

The businessman was arrested on 24 July and charged with “financing an extremist group” for making monthly donations of 500 rubles to [the late Alexei Navalny’s] Anti-Corruption Foundation, donations which continued for some time after the Foundation had been designated an “extremist organization.” Kunis pleaded guilty.

Kunes owned the newspaper Moy Rayon from 2003 to 2014. In 2015, he founded the grocery delivery service iGooods. He was among the first organizers of the Immortal Regiment march in Petersburg. The businessman was arrested on 24 July and later remanded in custody.

Source: Bumaga (Facebook), 18 December 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader

Are the rumors true that the company iGooods was “stolen” from its founder, Gregory Kunis, while he was in pretrial detention facing political charges? We spoke with the business’s new beneficiary to get both sides of the story.

One of the first grocery delivery services in Russia, iGooods (which has been around since 2015) came under the control of entrepreneur Roman Yarovsky while its founder, Gregory Kunis, was under arrest in connection with the Anti-Corruption Foundation donations case, Bumaga reported earlier. The two sides disagree about how honestly the deal came off and whether politics was a factor.

Kunis’s story is that iGooods urgently needed infusions of cash in 2025. In July of that year, Gregory and his brother Dmitry transferred 50% of the company to a new investor, Roman Yarovsky, who was obliged to preserve the business and the agreed-upon stakes in it of all its shareholders, including Kunis. Subsequently, Gregory was arrested, and the company’s new director, Alexander Bolotnikov, who had replaced Kunis under Yarovsky’s watch, was among the people who testified against him. The new owner “took advantage of the situation” and transferred 100% of the company’s shares to a new legal entity in which none of the previous owners had a stake.

These details (except for Bolotnikov’s incriminating testimony) were corroborated by Yarovsky, but he interprets them differently.

Yavorsky’s story is that, in July 2025, iGooods was in debt to its employees and business partners. Roman took over management of the business. The ownership transfer process took 45 days, but, according to Yavorsky, he began investing money immediately.

“My partner Roman Chubey and I spent about 17 million rubles [approx. 198,000 euros—TRR]. It took about three days: we had just changed ownership and submitted the paperwork when the ‘mask show’ [police carrying out a raid] arrived. They turned the whole office upside down and confiscated all the servers. Do you know what Federal Law No. 115 [the Law on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing] is? We were told that our former director had apparently been sponsoring an extremist organization, so the business would be shut down. […] I asked [the law enforcement officers] to give us at least a couple of weeks. They agreed. We managed to transfer our business operations to another company [“Global iGoods”],” Yavorsky claims.

According to Yarovsky, none of the old shareholders got a stake in the new company because Kunis was under investigation and thus a danger to the new company, while the other owners allegedly failed to show up for a shareholders’ meeting which, interestingly, had been held only about a month earlier.

“What else could I do in such a situation? I had to save the capital I had invested,” Yarovsky concludes.

Kunis argues that this claim is far-fetched: at the time the criminal case was opened, he no longer had any formal connection to the legal entity and could not have posed a threat to it. Yarovsky claims that the business transfer paperwork was still being processed by the tax inspectorate when the company’s offices were raided and Kunis was detained. Yarovsky was unable to provide us with documents corroborating that a search had taken place and that he had received threats from law enforcement.

What is at stake? According to public records, the company that owns iGooods was profitable but financially unstable in 2024. According to RBC Petersburg, by 2025, employee salaries began to be delayed due to a shortage of cash flow. According to Kunis, one of the key causes of the downturn was a competitive market and the shift of some customers to large companies that subsidized their services.

The new legal entity, Global iGoods, is currently continuing the operations of the iGooods service, which delivers groceries from four stores in Petersburg, including the upscale Super Babylon.

Who is Yavorsky? He is known as one of the shareholders of the Deti group of companies, which operated the large Deti (“Children”) Zdorovy Malysh (“Healthy Baby”) sore chains. The group was declared bankrupt due to its debts, so Yavorsky himself cannot own the new business. His daughter Pelageya was formally named the holder of the initial 50% stake in iGooods.

Elena Chubey (who shares the same last name as Roman Yavorsky’s partner) currently owns 100% of the shares in the new LLC.

Source: Bumaga (Facebook), 25 December 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader

I am Gregory Kunis. Until recently I lived in St. Petersburg, where I built my career in media and business. I built projects such as the St. Petersburg Times and Moj Rajon, and later worked in technology, including the grocery delivery service iGoods. I was not a political activist. I lived an ordinary professional life and assumed I was beneath the radar of the Russian state.

That illusion ended when I was arrested in July last year for donating the equivalent of 35 euros to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. I spent five months in pretrial detention. After my release I still faced an appeal by prosecutors — who thought my fine of 350,000 roubles ($4,500) was too lenient — and the possibility of a six-year sentence. On the day I was freed I left Russia. I now live in Israel, separated from my family for the time being, trying to rebuild a life from almost nothing.

I am writing this diary because I want to describe Russia from the inside, not through slogans or geopolitics, but through lived experience. Many people abroad see only the surface and conclude that repression works mainly through open terror, or that support for the war is simple and voluntary. But fear is only part of the story. Uncertainty is just as important. When the state keeps shifting the boundaries of punishment, people begin to censor themselves before anyone has to order them to. That is the mechanism I want to describe: how a system reshapes people inwardly, and how apparently bureaucratic institutions are used to break resistance.

One of the clearest examples is the Russian pretrial detention system, the SIZO. If you want to understand how recruitment to the war works, you have to begin there.

The first day in detention is designed to strip you of time, dignity and control. The prison transport is cramped and airless. There are no windows, almost no ventilation, and long periods of waiting in heat and foul air. You are moved like cargo. Then come the holding cells, where eight or 12 people may be packed together in a tiny space, with bad water, almost no food, cigarette smoke, and no explanation of what is happening. There are no clocks. No one tells you what will happen next or when. You are taken to one short procedure, then sent back to wait again. The language around you is reduced to orders. By the end of the day, after interrogation, dry rations, and hurried processing in the middle of the night, you are physically and mentally emptied out. Long after midnight you are placed in a dark cell not knowing where you are, who is with you, what the rules are, or what will become of you.

Then comes quarantine, the first stage of detention, which is far worse than what follows. The conditions are harsher than in the later stages of custody: crowded cells, barred windows, almost no fresh air, no walks, no shower, no books, no news, and no contact with the outside world. You are allowed one letter, with no certainty that it will arrive. The deepest burden is not only physical discomfort, but isolation. You don’t know what is happening to your loved ones, and they don’t know what is happening to you.

In such conditions, time itself starts to dissolve. Without clocks, without movement, without normal daily markers, the day loses structure. Prisoners improvise ways to follow the sun just to recover some minimal sense of reality. This uncertainty is not an accidental by-product of the system. It is one of its main instruments. A person deprived of information, rhythm, privacy, and contact becomes easier to control.

It is precisely during these first days, when people have been stripped of strength, information, and emotional stability, that recruitment for the war takes place.

This is one of the most important things I want to record. The offer is presented as an escape: sign the contract, go to war, and leave prison behind. In that moment, the choice is not experienced as a political decision. It is experienced as a way out of unbearable confinement. By my reckoning about 30 percent agree immediately, and another 10 percent say they may agree later, once they better understand their likely sentence and future prospects. That is a striking figure, but it should not be misunderstood. It does not prove that these people are ideologically committed to the war. It shows how the state exploits exhaustion, fear and disorientation.

In such a condition, almost any exit begins to look reasonable. Moral judgment is pushed aside by something more primitive: the need to escape. The dangers of combat, the meaning of the war, and even basic ethical questions become secondary to the immediate desire to get out. The person is no longer choosing freely between prison and military service. He is making a decision after being systematically reduced to a state of weakness and despair.

That is why recruitment in detention cannot be understood through propaganda alone. Posters, patriotic rhetoric and official television are only part of the story. The deeper mechanism is institutional. It lies in the sleepless nights, the sealed windows, the bad air, the missing clock, the silence from home, and the unending uncertainty about what comes next. That is where many decisions are actually made. The state takes people at their weakest moment and converts brokenness into manpower.

This is also why I believe it is important to write. Systems like this do not survive by violence alone. They survive by learning how far a person can be bent before he gives way. They survive by turning despair into compliance. If I want readers outside Russia to understand how the war is sustained, I have to show not only the battlefield or the speeches from Moscow, but also the prison cell and the mechanisms operating inside it.

As for me, I do not believe I will return to Russia. I am listed there as a terrorist, my bank accounts are blocked, and I cannot imagine building a normal life under those conditions even if I were physically free. But I can still write. My hope is simple: to leave an honest record of how this system works from the inside, and to help others see more clearly how fear, uncertainty and war are connected. If I do that, I will have succeeded.

Source: Gregory Kunis, “How fear recruits for war,” The Russia Report 300, 8 May 2026

By April 2026, according to Mediazona’s count, at least 225 criminal cases had been opened across Russia over donations to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) made after it was banned as “extremist” in August 2021. The true figure is almost certainly higher: the courts, our main source, do not always publish enough information to distinguish ACF transfers from funding of other “extremist organisations.”

2025 was a record year for the number of ACF donor cases reaching the courts, and the pace of prosecutions has not slowed this year. Here is what we know about the state of the crackdown as of today.

By the spring of 2026, at least 225 criminal cases had been opened in Russia on charges of “financing extremism” (Article 282.3 of the Russian Criminal Code) over donations made to the ACF after the foundation was banned in the summer of 2021. Mediazona established this figure from press releases issued by law enforcement agencies, court records and statements from the defendants themselves.

We have documented such cases in 64 Russian regions, from Kaliningrad in the West to Sakhalin in the Far East. The highest number is in Moscow (25 cases), followed by Sverdlovsk Region (17) and Kaliningrad Region (13).

Of the 225 cases known to us, 187 have been filed in court. There are a total of 190 court cases related to ACF donations, but three of them do not involve ordinary donors: the prosecutions of Leonid Volkov, Alexei Navalny, “Navalny Live” staff member Daniel Kholodny, and the foundation’s investigator Sergei Ezhov. We include these in the chart of cases filed in court, but not in the overall statistics.

Last year set a record for the number of ACF donor cases in the courts. In 2022 there were only two such cases; four in 2023; and 27 in 2024. In 2025 we recorded 131 criminal cases. In the first months of 2026 we have found a further 23, and it is already clear the total by year’s end will be considerably higher.

Our tally includes only those cases in which we could reliably confirm that the defendant was being tried for transfers to the ACF rather than to another “extremist organisation”—religious groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the vaguely-defined gang-culture movement A.U.E., and others.

It is often only possible to determine exactly where a defendant sent money several months after the verdict. This means 225 cases is a conservative estimate, since the courts are reluctant to share information about ongoing trials.

For this reason, in the majority of “financing of extremism” case filed in courts in 2026, it is not yet possible to establish to whom the defendant transferred money. The rise in the number of unidentified Article 282.3 cases in the courts coincides with the rise in ACF cases, suggesting that a significant share of them do in fact concern the ACF, even if we cannot yet confirm this.

To date, we are aware of 167 convictions linked to the ACF’s fundraising. As before, judges typically impose non-custodial sentences: more than 85% of defendants have avoided prison.

Fines are the most common punishment, handed down to 114 people. By Mediazona’s calculations, the total value of those fines has reached nearly 40 million roubles (about $527,000), while the donations that triggered the prosecutions amount to roughly 400,000 roubles (about $5,270).

One of the cases that ended in a fine is particularly notable because, for the first time, the text of the verdict revealed how law enforcement and Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial intelligence watchdog, track down ACF donors.

In December 2025, the Petrogradsky District Court of St. Petersburg fined businessman Gregory Kunis 350,000 roubles ($4,640) for donations to the ACF. The agencies involved in the case were the FSB and Rosfinmonitoring, which has access to all bank transactions in Russia. A deputy head of the financial investigations department of Rosfinmonitoring’s Northwest Federal District office testified for the trial. He first mentioned an FSB request regarding Kunis personally, then explained that after the ACF was designated an “extremist organisation”, Rosfinmonitoring and law enforcement had jointly carried out a financial investigation into the merchant account with the identifier V2NI29SJROMGYKY in order to identify those who had transferred money to it.

The account with merchant ID V2NI29SJROMGYKY is cited in almost every donor case apart from the earliest ones: it is through this identifier that investigators prove the defendant sent money to Navalny’s foundation.

This witness testimony proves that search for ACF donors is being run centrally, with Rosfinmonitoring working alongside the security services. You can read more about the investigation into the donation cases in Mediazona’s first article on the topic.

Of the cases Mediazona has been able to review, 24 defendants received suspended sentences. A further five were sentenced to compulsory labour.

Another 24 defendants received prison sentences (four of them in absentia). The charge of “financing extremism” carries a maximum of eight years’ imprisonment, but the courts have yet to reach the upper limit where that was the sole charge.

Half of the custodial sentences have been handed down in Moscow. ACF donors in the capital have until now been punished significantly more harshly than those in the regions—but in recent months, Moscow judges have started behaving less predictably.

On a single day, March 2, the Timiryazevsky Court fined an IT entrepreneur for donating to the ACF while the Meshchansky Court sentenced Alexei Buchnev, a former Central Bank employee, to three years in prison. The following day, the Butyrsky Court sentenced one of Buchnev’s colleagues to compulsory labour. Two weeks later, on March 16, the Savelovsky Court fined Dmitry Nyudlchiev, an employee of a Rosatom subsidiary. The next day, the IT specialist Alexei Yekaterinin was sentenced to four years in prison by the Perovsky Court.

Why the courts hand down such wildly different punishments is unclear. It does not depend on the size of the donations: for transfers of the same 2,100 roubles (about $28) in total, one Moscow resident received a fine and another a prison sentence. Some defendants donate to Russia’s Ukraine war effort in the hope that it will be treated as a mitigating factor—but this is no guarantee of freedom. Yekaterinin, who was sent to prison, had transferred more than 10,000 roubles (around $130) to the “People’s Front. All for Victory” fund. The same goes for renouncing one’s previous views. Yekaterinin pleaded guilty, and his lawyer argued in court that the ACF had “set him up” by “playing on” citizens’ patriotic sentiments.

A lawyer who handles ACF donor cases told Mediazona that, in his experience, sentencing is shaped by a host of factors, including “the personal impression the defendant and the defence make on a particular judge”.

Outside Moscow, custodial sentences have become more common in Kaliningrad Region, though punishments there remain lighter than in the capital. In October 2025, defendants named Feshchenkov and Kovalenko were each sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. In December, a local resident named Kazanovsky received four months. In February 2026, another Kaliningrad resident was sentenced to three years. In total, at least five people in the region have been given custodial sentences, including Pavel Natsarenus, who was jailed for eight months in 2024.

Besides Moscow and Kaliningrad Region, custodial sentences for ACF donations have also recently been handed down in Kirov Region and Stavropol [Territory]. In November, a court in Kirov sentenced an IT entrepreneur, who had left Russia back in September 2022, to three years in absentia. Konstantin Bernatov, a resident of Stavropol, received the same sentence in January, this time in person. The details of his case are not known.

The folklorist Valery Ledkov from Khanty-Mansiysk, whom we mentioned in our previous update, has since been released. In February, the Seventh Court of Cassation commuted his custodial sentence to a suspended one.

We deal separately with cases in which the defendant is charged with something else in addition to ACF donations—an additional charge can substantially affect the sentence. Lawyers warn that once the security services have taken an interest in someone because of their support for the foundation, they may well find other grounds for prosecution.

Igor Meshalnikov, a resident of Kostroma Region, was first fined 40,000 roubles (around $530) for donating to the ACF and then, several months later, detained on a fresh charge of financing Artpodgotovka. He was ultimately sentenced to 10 years.

Alexander Germizin, secretary of the Vladimir branch of the liberal opposition party Rassvet, was first convicted of “[condoning] terrorism”. A second case was then opened against him over cryptocurrency transfers to the ACF and the Armed Forces of Ukraine made after the start of the war (“financing extremism” and “treason”). The security services had likely gained access to Germizin’s devices during the first case and found the prohibited payments there. He was sentenced to 15 years.

A similar sentence—14 years—was imposed on a resident of [the Maritime Territory] in the Far East who had made transfers to the ACF and the AFU “totalling more than 13,000 roubles” (around $170). Exactly how he moved the money is unclear.

There are also the opposite cases, in which someone is first detained on charges unrelated to supporting the opposition. This is what happened to Viktor Mezhuiev from Sakhalin Region. In 2025 he and his friends were first convicted of illegal fishing, and a few months later he was sentenced on charges of “financing extremism”. He was fined 300,000 roubles (around $4,000).

The Moscow City Court designated the ACF an extremist organisation in June 2021; the ruling came into force on August 4. The next day, the foundation launched a new donation drive through the American payments service Stripe.

The ACF’s team believed that because Stripe would not cooperate with the Russian security services, investigators would be unable to identify its donors. But on the very first day of the new drive, a critical error occurred: the payment description that appeared on some donors’ bank statements contained part of the foundation’s website address: WORLD.FBK.IN (ACF’s Russian-language abbreviation is FBK).

The first criminal cases were opened in August 2022. While analysing bank statements, security forces noticed other matching identifiers in the ACF transfers, specifically the merchant ID. This significantly expanded the pool of suspects, and merchant IDs and other technical identifiers have now become the primary evidence in donation cases.

In early August 2025, Mediazona published a detailed study on how criminal cases against donors are structured; at the time, 76 cases were known. The study concluded with instructions on how to check if you are at risk and what to do if you sent money to the ACF via Stripe.

The ACF issued a statement emphasizing that Vladimir Putin bears responsibility for the repressions and that the evidence in such cases is inconsistent. The foundation added that it had warned “a significant number of potential defendants in criminal cases” of the danger, and “several people were successfully evacuated.”

In early September, the ACF’s director, Ivan Zhdanov, announced that he was stepping down from the foundation. In an interview after his departure, he described the decision to launch a donation drive after the organisation’s ban as “ill-advised”.

“Risky decisions were taken, which Putin’s regime ultimately exploited,” he said.

Source: Olga Romashova, “The 225 donor cases. Russian authorities continue to prosecute donors to Navalny’s Anti‑Corruption Foundation across the country,” Mediazona, 21 April 2026. The emphasis is mine. I have also made a few tiny emendations to bring the text into line with common English-language editing standards. ||||| trr

Political Prisoner Azat Miftakhov Continues to Be Tortured by the Putin Regime

Azat Miftakhov is being transferred to the colony where Alexei Navalny was murdered

Anarchist, mathematician, and political prisoner Azat Miftakhov was sentenced on March 28, 2024, to 4 additional years in prison. On September 4, 2023, he was detained upon leaving IK-17 [Correctional Colony No. 17] in Omutninsk, Kirov region, where he had already served his first sentence—allegedly for breaking a window at a United Russia office in Moscow’s Khovrino district. The basis for the new prosecution for “justifying terrorism” was (allegedly) comments Azat made while watching a TV program with other inmates about anarchist Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who carried out an explosion at the FSB office in Arkhangelsk. Testimony against Azat was given by fellow prisoners and a prison employee.

Recently, the political prisoner was transferred from a prison in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region. In a letter dated April 19, Azat reported on his transfer from Kirov to Vorkuta:

“I’m writing to you from Vorkuta. And as you understand, I’m heading to Kharp. I think no further comments are needed.

“Two days on the train have worn me out quite a bit. The toilet—once every 4 hours, hot water—three times a day, there’s no room to turn around in the compartments, my bones ache from constantly lying on a hard bunk and the shaking of the train. So the stop in Vorkuta is very welcome. Tomorrow morning we depart, and we’ll arrive in Kharp the same day. It seems I’ll go straight from the train to the camp without intermediate stops (apparently there are no detention centers there).”

The prisoner’s support group comment[ed] on this news:

“It is quite obvious that transferring Azat to Kharp is nothing other than a desire to take revenge on him for his firm stance. It is both a threat that his life depends on the will of the security apparatus and the creation of significant hardship for the remaining 1.5 years of his sentence.

“Kharp is one of the northernmost places of detention in Russia; it is located beyond the Arctic Circle, in permafrost conditions. It was established in 1961 on the basis of preserved buildings of a former camp unit of the Gulag’s Construction Site No. 501.

“In addition to Alexei Navalny, who was unable to leave the colony alive, well-known political prisoners held in Kharp include Platon Lebedev (2005–2006) and Oleg Sentsov (2017–2019).”

Here is what Azat’s wife and defender, Elena Gorban, writes:

“As his lawyer, I visited Azat monthly in the Ulyanovsk region, spending under 10,000 rubles (circa 110 euros) on travel (or not much more, depending on circumstances). Now I understand that a trip to the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug will cost closer to 40,000 (circa 440 euros): 5000 for two nights in a hostel, 12000 and 20000 for flights… (12000 is with a middle-of-the-night layover and worst possible service).

“I’ll also have to cross the Ob River to and from the airport. And I hope I won’t have to open and close the swimming season immediately… since, according to a hostel worker, ice crossing is still operational.

“Maybe later I’ll figure out how to make these trips cheaper, but it’s unlikely I’ll manage without expensive flights… after all, two days by train one way, especially when trains don’t run daily, is not something you can do regularly.

“Oh, and if Azat ends up specifically in the colony in the village of Kharp, and not in Labytnangi (the nearest city), then it seems there’s no electronic mail there. That already borders on torture.”

Donate bitcoin for Azat:

Bitcoin: bc1qspn7lwg38ra6r836akqwusnr4zvjhmegz5v9dm

For [details on money transfers] inside Russia, refer to [the original] post in Russian.

Translated by Anarchist Black Cross Moscow

Source: Autonomous Action, 26 April 2026. Thanks to Simon Pirani for the heads-up.

On [5 August 2025] Russia’s Supreme Court rejected the final appeal for Azat Miftakhov, a mathematician and anarchist serving his second politically motivated prison sentence. His latest conviction, for “justifying terrorism,” rests entirely on the testimony of a fellow inmate who claimed Miftakhov had praised an attack on the security services. For over six years, Miftakhov has navigated two coexisting identities in Russia’s brutal penal system: that of a political prisoner and a member of the “obizhennye”, or the “degraded”—the untouchable caste at the bottom of the prison hierarchy. In letters from behind bars, he tells Mediazona how he survives.

Azat Miftakhov, 31, was a graduate student in mathematics at Moscow State University when he was first arrested in February 2019.

Initially accused of making explosives, he was beaten and tortured by security service agents who threatened to rape him with an electric screwdriver. Another detainee was tortured with an electric shocker by security forces who demanded he incriminate the mathematician. After his detention, Miftakhov attempted to slit his wrists but gave no confession.

Bespectacled, short and soft-spoken, the anarchist has not yielded to this day, despite pressure from the FSB and a second fabricated terrorism case.

Back in February 2019, when the security forces failed to find evidence that the young man had been making explosives, Miftakhov was accused in a case concerning a window broken a year earlier at a ruling United Russia party office in Moscow’s Khovrino district.

The pressure campaign continued inside the prison. Officers from the FSB informed other inmates of Miftakhov’s bisexuality. The move was a calculated effort to have him ostracised and forced into the “degraded” caste, a group subject to constant humiliation, violence, and forced labour. Miftakhov did not deny the officers’ words; back in 2019, intimate photos of him were published by Telegram channels linked to security services and later by the state-run TV channel Rossiya-1.

A vigorous public campaign in support of Miftakhov began from the first days of his arrest, so he could not hide his status as a political prisoner from other detainees, though he did not deliberately advertise it.

“During mail call, the whole prison section is standing in formation,” he explains. “An activist comes up with a stack of letters. The first is for me, the second for me, the third, the fourth… In the end, only two or three letters go to other inmates. The rest are mine.” He often received letters and postcards from France, Germany, and Sweden, something extraordinary for other prisoners. “They’re writing even from America!” they would marvel. The camp’s population changed, but newcomers would often approach me and ask: “Is it true that Oxxxymiron wrote a song about you?”

—

In the winter of 2021, Azat Miftakhov was sentenced to six years in a penal colony. A secret witness, interrogated a year after the case was opened, claimed to have identified Miftakhov among the group that broke the United Russia office window and threw a smoke bomb inside, recognising him by his “expressive eyebrows.” The anarchist himself denied any involvement in the action.

After his time in Moscow’s pre-trial detention centres, Miftakhov was transferred in August 2021 to serve his sentence at Penal Colony No. 17 (IK-17) in Omutninsk, Kirov region. The prison was “red”, or tightly controlled by the administration through “activists” from among the prisoners.

Although severe physical violence had become a rarity there in recent decades, the colony’s reputation for torture dated back to the late 1980s, especially as punishment for refusing to prepare for official holidays. For many years, the most important of these was Victory Day, and all prisoners without exception were required to participate in preparations for a “parade” featuring models of military equipment.

“It was considered an absolutely mandatory thing, and to refuse meant condemning yourself to unimaginable torment: torture with shockers, bleach, and the punishment cell,” recalls Timur Isayev, who was incarcerated in IK-17 at the same time as Miftakhov. He was serving a sentence for organising an escort agency. After his release, Isayev left Russia.

Miftakhov impressed Isayev immediately upon his arrival at the colony. The inmates learned that during quarantine, security officers had offered the mathematician the chance to “hide” his “degraded” status in exchange for cooperation, but he refused.

“He told them: ‘Chief, you protect laws and rights, yet you speak to me in some kind of criminal jargon that you yourself are supposed to fight against. I don’t recognise your stinking ponyatiya. I don’t recognise this division of people either. Do what you think is necessary.’ The cops were just stunned by such audacity and directness,” Isayev recalls.

Thus, from the perspective of the other prisoners, Miftakhov had essentially “defined” himself as “degraded”, since he had the opportunity to hide his status, explains the source to Mediazona. Therefore, each of [the] muzhiki, or “the men”, regular prisoners, had to decide for himself whether it was appropriate to communicate with him. Isayev says he spoke with him without regard for others: “He had a normal social life in the zone, he was treated very well—not like the others in that caste, with whom he could still interact. He had a completely special position.”

From Azat Miftakhov’s letter to Mediazona (abridged)

You can’t get “infected”’ by talking to someone who is “degraded”, but it’s considered improper for one of “the men” to hang around a “degraded” person for too long. You won’t be “called to account” for it, but you might catch ridicule and taunts from others, even provocations. They might suggest that a “man” “share” living quarters with the “degraded” since he gets along with them so well.

The life of a “degraded” person consists of many prohibitions. Many of them are so fundamental that they cannot be ignored without getting into a conflict with “the men”. Take, for example, the obligation for the “degraded” to be last in every queue: for the canteen, the shop, the medical unit. It happened more than once, for instance, that I’d stand in line for the shop all day. The queue is long, and as always, they’ve brought in an insufficient amount of goods. Every now and then, you hear that this or that has already run out. And then, just as the queue reaches the “degraded” inmates, a dozen more of “the men” suddenly appear from around the corner, having only just decided to join the line. You have to let them go first. It’s frustrating, of course, but what can you do? If you don’t like it, you can get locked in a punishment cell or a cell-type unit. But then you can forget about parcels and visits.

There is only one prohibition that I refuse to accept—the ban on fighting one of “the men”. If someone tries to humiliate my human dignity with an insult or by forcing me to do something, I consider it my sacred right to respond with force. The only thing I have to be wary of when exercising this right is punishment from the activists or the criminal elites. They can beat you severely for it, causing serious injury. However, I value my human dignity too highly to allow it to be debased, even under the threat of injury. Prison is a place where you’d better not “swallow” humiliation. If you “swallow” it once, you convince those around you that you can “swallow” it again and again. It’s better to nip it in the bud. That’s my philosophy on the matter.

I have had to fight “the men” several times, and each time it was over my status. It didn’t always lead to a scandal. Sometimes we managed to make peace with my opponent afterwards. A couple of times, a “case” was brought against me. The “trial” took place in a storeroom. Activists and various influential people as “judges” would cram in there, along with both sides of the conflict, meaning me and my “victim”. Witnesses were also called. Some “judges” seemed eager to pass a harsh sentence, which could have been carried out on the spot. I had to be prepared for such a turn of events and at the same time maintain my composure while justifying my position. Although according to the “prison” law, I was already in the wrong from the start, so my universal human arguments were unlikely to work there.

Fragment of Miftakhov’s letter to Mediazona

—

Miftakhov’s principles faced a major test in the spring of 2022, as the colony prepared for its annual Victory Day parade.

When Miftakhov saw other prisoners painting the “Z” and “V” symbols of the Ukraine invasion onto military props, he informed his detachment chief he would not participate. He expected to be sent to a punishment cell, but the administration, wary of his high profile, opted for a different strategy.

The day before the parade, Miftakhov was summoned; he expected to be tortured there, but instead, an inspector led him to a windowless room hidden deep within the medical unit, furnished only with a bed, a bedside table, and a toilet. Soon, the head of the operational department arrived. He explained that the room would temporarily become a “safe place” for the political prisoner.

From Azat Miftakhov’s letter to Mediazona (abridged)

“We’ve received information that some convicts are unhappy with your position,” the officer told me. “They want to teach you a lesson.”

“Therefore,” he continued, “it was decided to provide you with a safe place. Due to the threat to your health.”

“And how long will I be in this safe place?” I asked.

“Well,” the officer seemed to ponder, “I don’t know. Maybe a month, maybe a year. Or maybe until the last convict who wants to beat your ass is released.”

After talking with me a little more, he left, and I remained in that room. That’s how I began to learn what a “safe place” was. And I must say, it was the best gift the IK-17 administration could have possibly given me.

From then on, I didn’t have to go to work. I could spend all day on self-development, solving math problems and reading books. But most importantly, I could rest from the constant hustle and bustle of the common area. I wished it could last until my release. However, my happiness was not destined to last long. A week later, some random people were asked to sign off that the threat against me was gone. I had to return.

—

It was in IK-17 that Miftakhov formed a friendship with Evgeny Trushkov, another “degraded” prisoner serving a long sentence for charges including group rape. This friendship would prove to be his undoing. As Miftakhov’s release date in September 2023 approached, the FSB scrambled to build a new case against him. Trushkov became their star witness.

He testified that Miftakhov had “justified terrorism” in conversations with him, allegedly praising Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a teenager who bombed an FSB office in 2018. “I admire the actions of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who was not afraid to lay down his life in the fight against Putin’s regime,” Trushkov claimed Miftakhov had said.

From Azat Miftakhov’s letter to Mediazona (abridged)

In the two years we knew each other, I received nothing but support from him. Sometimes he would tell me how he wanted to help me evade the FSB’s attention, that he was even willing to postpone his own freedom for it. Some of his suggestions were naive, which only convinced me of their sincerity. So when I found out that Trushkov had testified against me, I didn’t believe it at first. Only gradually, as I got acquainted with my new criminal case, did I begin to understand that he had betrayed me.

I do not think Trushkov initiated the criminal case, as he claimed in court. I am sure his story about how he, out of patriotic feelings, went to report the alleged crime to the detachment chief was fabricated to make the prosecution’s evidence seem coherent.

I believe this is what happened. On July 20, he was presented with a choice: either you give us the testimony we need against Azat, or you get “spun up” with him on a terrorism charge, but a more severe one. And they probably made it clear that the necessary witnesses for such a charge would be found. From there, I see two possible scenarios. First: he got scared for himself. Second: he made a deal with the FSB for my own good. I do not rule out either of these options, nor do I justify them.

Making deals with the FSB is a losing game from the start. One should not think that you can outsmart them this way, gaining more than you lose. Such underestimation of the enemy is extremely dangerous. Once you make one concession to them, they will force you to make a second, a third, and so on, until you give them your soul. In my conversations with him, I noticed this naive underestimation of the special services.

—

On the day he was due to be freed, Miftakhov was met at the prison gates by FSB agents who immediately re-arrested him. In a new trial based on his friend’s testimony, he was sentenced to another four years for “justifying terrorism.”

He is now held in a high-security prison in Dimitrovgrad, mostly in solitary confinement. His mental health has declined sharply. Trushkov, meanwhile, was released from the colony to fight for [the Wagner Group] in Ukraine. In a phone call to Miftakhov’s wife from the front, he slurred, “Get the kid out of there,” knowing Dimitrovgrad prison’s reputation.

Miftakhov is not scheduled for release until September 2027.

From Azat Miftakhov’s letter to Mediazona (abridged)

“There are no friends in prison,” as the inmates say. I don’t like such generalisations, but there is a certain amount of truth in it. Inmates are inherently placed in a vulnerable position. One wants to be released as soon as possible, another hopes for an unscheduled visit with his wife, and all of this depends on the goodwill of the administration. The administration knows the value of these benefits and sells them for special services. Snitching and betrayal are among them. And yes, prison status has no meaning here: “snitches” are found among both the “degraded” and “the men”. And you can’t say that the proportion among the former is noticeably different from the proportion among the latter.

Nevertheless, I managed to get burned by my friendship with Trushkov. Well, I have to admit that I am apparently a poor judge of character. This incident has significantly affected my perception of people in places of detention. When I meet a new person, I can’t help but start to assess whether he is capable of refusing the chekists if they try to force him to testify against me with threats and promises.

Source: Nikita Sologub, “The double status problem. Anarchist mathematician Azat Miftakhov on his life at the bottom of Russia’s brutal prison caste system,” Mediazona, 8 August 2025

The Verdict on Spring: The Vesna Case

The “Vesna” Verdict

A verdict was handed down in the Vesna case in Petersburg today. In 2018, members of this movement, which Russia designated “extremist” and “hostile” (or something along those lines, “undesirable,” etc.), held a protest: a funeral for Russia’s future. It turned out to be a long process: burying the future, imprisoning spring… Today is a bad day. The activists were convicted and sentenced to extremely long prison terms! The only female defendant, Anna Arkhipova, was sentenced to twelve years in prison; Yan Ksenzhepolsky, to eleven years; Vasily Neustroyev, to ten years; Pavel Sinelnikov, to seven and a half years; Yevgeny Zateyev, to six years and two months. Valentin Khoroshenin was also sentenced to six years and two months in prison despite the fact that he had testified against his comrades while in jail. It didn’t do him any good…. Look at his face today. He is the only one who looks lost to me. The other defendants were calm and dignified.

I may be naive, but I still believe that the future isn’t buried, that spring will come, that the gloom and the cold will simply fade away. It will happen naturally because that’s how the world works, and I believe this especially during Holy Week. “Wind and weather [will] change direction,” and spring will arrive.

I hadn’t taken photos in a courtroom for nearly nine months. Today was tough. I can recall only one case which dragged on longer than the Vesna case—the trial of the twenty-four fighters from the Azov Regiment. My sister Lizka has provided a detailed account of the Vesna case and the young people sentenced today. Give it a listen and/or a read! [See the embedded YouTube video and translation of the Mediazona article below—TRR.]

The natural flow of life suffices to make spring come, but to ensure that the earth hasn’t been depopulated by the time it does come—so that there is someone other than the beasties left to welcome that spring—we must remain human beings: we must know what is going on, empathize, and help out.

#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners

Source: Alexandra Astakhova (Facebook), 8 April 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

A judge in St. Petersburg on Wednesday sentenced six former members of the democratic youth organization Vesna to prison sentences of varying lengths after they were found guilty of charges including extremism and spreading “war fakes.”

The activists, including one woman and five men, were no longer members of Vesna at the time of their arrests in June 2023.

Vesna, which means spring in Russian, was founded in St. Petersburg in 2013. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it staged anti-war rallies in Russian cities, shortly after which it was designated as an “extremist” organization.

The human rights group Memorial recognized the six former members sentenced to jail on Wednesday as political prisoners.

St. Petersburg’s City Court found all six guilty of organizing an extremist group, mass unrest, disseminating “fakes” about the Russian army, calling for actions that undermine national security and rehabilitating [sic] Nazism.

The longest prison sentence of 12 years was handed to Anna Arkhipova, followed by 11 years for Yan Ksenzhepolsky and 10 years for Vasily Neustroyev.

Pavel Sinelnikov was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, while Yevgeny Zateyev and Valentin Khoroshenin each received six years and two months.

State prosecutors had requested prison sentences between eight years and 13 years.

The former activists initially pleaded not guilty in October 2024, but last July, Khoroshenin provided a “full confession” and testified against his co-defendants.

Arkhipova later said that Khoroshenin had told her after giving his confession that “what really matters isn’t what actually happened, but how the investigator wrote it up.”

Vesna declined a request for comment when contacted by the Moscow Times.

Source: “St. Petersburg Court Jails Former Members of Youth Activist Group Vesna,” Moscow Times, 8 April 2026

“Russia’s Future”: a 2018 protest action by Vesna. Photo: David Frenkel/Mediazona

Saint Petersburg City Court has handed down sentences to six former activists in the Vesna movement: Yevgeny Zateyev, Vasily Neustroyev, and Valentin Khoroshenin, of Petersburg; Yan Ksenzhepolsky, of Tver; Anna Arkhipova, of Novosibirsk; and Pavel Sinelnikov, of Barnaul. They were sentenced to stints in prison ranging from six to twelve years. In total, the case involves twenty-one suspects from thirteen regions. One of the defendants unexpectedly testified against his comrades in court. Mediazona offers its readers this brief overview of one of the most wide-ranging and dramatic trials against dissidents in recent years.

The democratic youth movement Vesna came to life with spirited, theatrical street protests in Petersburg over a dozen years ago. It came to an end in 2022 when it was banned, followed by the launching of a criminal case against it, leading to the arrests of some activists, and the exile of others.

“They made up their minds that [Vesna] was something along the lines of [Alexei Navalny’s] Anti-Corruption Foundation, I suppose,” muses one former Vesna member. The young woman asked not to be named, even though she had stepped away from politics before the movement was officially deemed “extremist.” She continues to live in Russia and hopes that the security services will “continue to overlook her.”

The playbooks for dismantling the Anti-Corruption Foundation and Vesna are indeed broadly similar:

The prosecution of Vesna activists began with searches warranted under an obscure criminal law statute concerning the creation of NGOs which infringe on people’s personal and civil rights. Charges of violating this very same statute had also formed the core of the case against the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
As happened with the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the security forces got Vesna designated an “extremist” organization. Following this, any public activity that police investigators deemed as “continuing” the movement’s work, such as posting on its social media, was regarded as a punishable offense.
In both cases, a wave of police searches of activists’ homes swept across various regions of Russia, and this was followed by a series of arrests.
Vesna’s most prominent figures were designated “foreign agents.” Many of them fled Russia and were placed on the wanted list. The security forces then took their revenge on those who remained behind.

The trial of the six Vesna activists in Petersburg had dragged on since the summer of 2024 and been one of the most high-profile political trials in wartime Russia, owing both to the steadfast stance taken by some of the defendants and to the dramatic about-face by others.

Mediazona, “The Vesna Case: Young People vs. ‘National Security,'” 7 April 2026

What is Vesna? What is it famous for?

Vesna was founded in February 2013. The new movement consisted of approximately fifty activists, many of whom hailed from the Petersburg branch of Youth Yabloko, which had dissolved a short time earlier. The goals Vesna voiced at the time were far removed from radicalism: “increasing the level of political engagement among young people” and “participating in Petersburg’s legislature and local government through elections.”

In their hometown, Vesna’s theatricalized processions and pickets quickly became a familiar fixture on the cultural and political scenes.

“Summer of Friendship” campaign, 2015. Photo: David Frenkel/Mediazona

In the summer of 2015, Vesna held an anti-war protest on Nevsky Prospekt, [Petersburg’s main thoroughfare]. Five activists stood holding signs that read “Write kind words to Ukraine” and a box where anyone could drop a postcard with words of support for the Ukrainian people.

In May 2016, Vesna marched through the city holding a banner reading “Circus, go away!” Opposition activists had not been permitted to hold May Day marches on Nevsky Prospekt, even though the country’s ruling United Russia party had been granted permission to march down the same route without any issues. In protest, Vesna activists staged an alternative procession in guise of a carnival: a young woman in church vestments with a fake belly demanded a ban on abortions, while another waved a censer by way of blessing a silver “Rogozin 1” rocket. Behind them walked a man with a TV set instead of a head. Someone carried a huge saw with the slogan “I support embezzlement!” Another carried a cello case stuffed with banknotes.

In January 2018, Vesna staged a mock funeral for Russia’s future: people dressed in mourning attire and with sorrowful expressions on their faces carried a coffin through the streets, adorned with children’s drawings that symbolized hopes for life in a free, democratic country.

In the summer of 2018, when Russia was hosting the FIFA World Cup, Vesna activists unfurled a banner reading “This World Cup Is Filled with Blood” on Palace Bridge in Petersburg. Vesna timed another protest against [torture in police custody] to coincide with the World Cup—a young woman, doused in red paint, lay down on a pedestal beneath a replica of the tournament’s official mascot, the wolf Zabivaka.

The movement grew rapidly. Regional chapters emerged, and by 2018 there were already around a dozen of them. By the late 2010s, Vesna was the most prominent youth organization in the Russian opposition’s ecosystem. No major protest took place without its activists being present. And yet, Vesna activists emphasized their commitment to legal methods of campaigning, as stated in their charter: “The movement pursues its work in accordance with the current laws of the Russian Federation.”

Vesna during the war: the first raids and interrogations

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the price of political dissent in Russia skyrocketed for all opponents of the government, and Vesna activists were no exception. On 3 May 2022, the movement announced the campaign “They Didn’t Fight for This,” calling on dissenters to attend the Immortal Regiment marches on 9 May (WWII Victory Day) but to carry anti-war placards at them.

A few days later, Vesna activists Yevgeny Zateyev and Valentin Khoroshenin, of Petersburg, and Roman Maximov, of Veliky Novgorod, who had already quit the movement, were targeted with searches of their homes. All three men were taken to Moscow for questioning and held in a temporary detention center pending trial.

These were the first steps in the investigation against Vesna activists. It was then that law enforcement authorities launched a criminal case into the setting up of an NGO that infringes on the personal rights of citizens.

The same day, search warrants were executed in Petersburg at the homes of the parents of Bogdan Litvin, Vesna’s federal coordinator, who had already left Russia, and activist Polina Barabash, as well as at the homes of former movement members Alexei Bezrukov and Artem Uimanen. In Moscow, searches were conducted at the homes of Timofei Vaskin, Angelina Roshchupko, Daria Pak, and Ivan Drobotov.

On 10 and 11 May 2022, the court issued restraining orders against Vaskin, Drobotov, Angelina Roshchupko, Maximov, Zateyev, and Khoroshenin, prohibiting them from certain actions. Soon after, Litvin and Drobotov were placed on the wanted list, as they had managed to leave Russia.

This did not stop Vesna, however. In September 2022, the youth activists announced protests against the military mobilization across Russia. Less than a month later, the Justice Ministry added the movement to its list of “foreign agents,” and the Saint Petersburg City Court ruled Vesna an “extremist” organization on 6 December 2022.

The charges and the trial

On 5 June 2023, the Investigative Committee opened a new criminal case, which later came to be known simply as the “big Vesna case.”

Searches were carried out the following day in Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Petersburg, and Tver. Six people were detained and taken to Moscow: Zateyev, Pavel Sinelnikov, Anna Arkhipova, Vasily Neustroyev, Yan Ksenzhepolsky, and Khoroshenin. On 8 June, a Moscow court remanded them to pretrial detention.

During the same pretrial detention hearing, the prosecution listed five charges: organizing and participating in an extremist group, desecrating the memory of defenders of the Fatherland, spreading “fake news” about the army, and calling for actions contrary to national security.

A year later, when the Saint Petersburg City Court began hearing the case against the six activists on its merits, there were seven charges. Incitement to mass unrest and the creation of an NGO infringing on citizens’ rights (the very same charge under which the activists’ homes had initially been searched in 2022) had been added to the bill of particulars.

The investigation assigned the role of leader and ideological instigator to Vesna’s federal coordinator Bogdan Litvin, who had managed to flee the country. According to law enforcement officials, it was Litvin who had driven the movement toward “extremism.”

Most of the charges were related to posts on Vesna’s social media accounts. Entered into the recorded were ninety posts made in Vesna’s name at various times on various platforms. When presenting evidence in court, the prosecution primarily read these posts aloud, listed the names of Telegram channels, cited viewer statistics, and read out the comments.

The indictment placed particular emphasis on a comment posted by a user known as “Kanoki Nagato,” on 1 May 2022. On one of Vesna’s Telegram channels, he suggested that Russians would one day start “killing the pigs, just like the Ukrainians did at Maidan.” According to the prosecution, the appearance of such a comment proved that Vesna was inciting dangerous actions. None of the defendants knows who “Kanoki Nagato” is, and law enforcement officials have not been able to identify this person either.

They did examine the personal accounts of the six defendants, however. Some of their Instagram accounts were found to be private. Speaking in court, the prosecutor called this “an attempt to conceal information from the investigation.”

When the prosecution presented its evidence in court, some of the hearings were held in closed session at the prosecutor’s office’s request, and members of the public and journalists were not allowed in the courtroom. Those involved in the proceedings are not permitted to disclose what they heard behind closed doors, but it is known that during at least some of these sessions, the court examined the results of intelligence operations—a term used in the Code of Criminal Procedure to refer, among other things, to wiretapping, undercover operations, and the interception and vetting of correspondence.

When it was the defense attorneys’ turn to present evidence, Arkhipova’s support group issued a public appeal: “The defense now urgently needs witnesses—people who actually took part in peaceful anti-war protests between February and May 2022 and have already suffered administrative penalties for doing so.”

Witnesses who responded to this post testified in court.

“To my mind, every citizen took to the streets out of a sense of duty and conscience. It was an entirely peaceful demonstration,” said one of them.

Another witness recounted that she was detained at an Immortal Regiment rally while holding up a portrait of her great-grandfather, and an administrative charge was filed against her for “discrediting” the army.

“I came out of my own free will. I’d participated in Immortal Regiment rallies before as well. At the time I made my decision, I hadn’t seen any notices on Telegram channels,” she explained.

A placard hung in the courthouse on the day the verdict in the Vesna trial was read out: “Yes to Vesna,* / No to war*! / And the truth* about them / is not extremism. / *Vesna, war, and truth are words forbidden in Russia in 2026.” Photo: Mediazona

At nearly every hearing in the trial, the defense insisted that the prosecution had no evidence that the accused activists were involved in posting most of the messages mentioned in the case file. Moreover, some of the defendants not only did not know each other prior to their arrest, but were also not members of Vesna at the time it was classified as an “extremist” organization.

Who’s who in the Vesna case

Yevgeny Zateyev, 24 years old

A resident of Petersburg, Zateyev was charged with violating Article 354.1.4 (“condoning Nazism”) and Article 282.1.1 (“establishing an extremist community”) of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The charge that he had violated Article 239.2 (“organizing an association that infringes on the personhood and rights of citizens”) was dropped due to the statute of limitations. The prosecutor asked the court to sentence Zateyev to ten years in a penal colony. The actual sentence was six years and two months.

Zateyev served as the press secretary for the Vesna movement’s Petersburg branch. In court, he insisted that his duties were limited to local topics: news about life in Petersburg, announcements of lectures, and film screenings.

He viewed the outbreak of the war as a “personal tragedy.”

“Vesna tried to prevent further destruction and loss of life on both sides of the border—among both civilians and military personnel—through peaceful means. I still regard this goal in an entirely positive light,” Zateyev said in court.

He was one of the first Vesna activists to face criminal charges in the spring of 2022. Some of his comrades left Russia, but Zateyev stayed behind and wound up in a pretrial detention center a year later.

In the summer of 2023, Zateyev wrote a letter from jail explaining why he had decided against fleeing the country.

“I made a very difficult and very painful choice. Was it a painful choice? Of course it was. I find it hard to imagine, though, how I could have left everything behind, gone away, and watched as my friends and acquaintances were imprisoned. This choice was easy for some, but I don’t judge them.”

In the same letter, Zateyev asked that his family not be judged for failing to “change [his] mind.”

In November 2023, Zateyev partially admitted his guilt in the hope of having his pretrial detention conditions eased. He was concerned about his family, especially his grandmother, who was seventy-seven years old at the time of his arrest. Zateyev was not released from pretrial detention, and so he withdrew his confession.

In January 2024, Zateyev’s grandmother died. Four months later, his mother also died, from cirrhosis of the liver.

Zateyev’s pretrial detention was extended once again shortly thereafter. Addressing the court, he mentioned the deaths of his loved ones. Judge Irina Furmanova interrupted him.

“Please do not try to pressure the court by bringing up the deaths of your relatives.”

“I am not putting any pressure on the court. I am simply stating the facts of my life.”

“We are familiar with them. You can merely note what you’ve been through. There’s no need to pressure us like that.”

“Your Honor, pressure—”

“Everyone has, or some people no longer have, a mother. There’s no need to pressure us in that regard. I’ll say it again. Let’s continue.”

In his closing statement, Zateyev said that he was forgiving the investigators, prosecutors, and judges.

“I caution against the false belief that forgiveness absolves one of responsibility. It does not. I do believe, however, that through forgiveness, we can understand the reasons behind what is happening—why and for what purpose. By ridding ourselves of an age-old evil, learning to treat one another with understanding, we can finally find love. I believe that this is possible and even inevitable in Russia. Spring [vesna] is inevitable. The season, of course. What did you think I meant?”

Mailing address for letters:

Russia 196655 St. Petersburg, Kolpino
Kolpinskaya St., d. 9, str. 1
Pretrial Detention Center No. 1
Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region
Yevgeny Artemovich Zateyev, born 2001

Bank card number for donations: 2200 7009 1119 8470

Anna Arkhipova, 28 years old

A resident of Novosibirsk, Arkhipova was charged with violating Articles 282.1.1 and 282.1.2 (“organizing an extremist community”), Article 354.1.4 (“condoning Nazism”), Article 280.4.3 (“discrediting the Russian armed forces”), Article 212.1.1 (“repeatedly violating the law on public assemblies”), and Articles 207.3.2.b and 207.3.2.e (“disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian armed forces”) of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The charge that she had violated Article 239.3 (“organizing an association that infringes on the personhood and rights of citizens”) was dropped due to the statute of limitations. The prosecutor asked the court to sentence Arkhipova to thirteen years in prison. The judge sentenced her to twelve years in prison instead.

Arkhipova joined Vesna in February 2021 to “take a civic stand, engage in publicly vital work, and meet new people.” She wrote posts for the movement’s social media accounts but quickly grew tired of “conflicts within the group” and left in May 2022.

Once the war in Ukraine had kicked off, Vesna’s work became “random and certainly not organized,” according to Arkhipova.

“Everything happened naturally,” Arkhipova said in court. “I felt the need to protest the war, as I regarded it and continue to regard it as a great catastrophe and tragedy. That is why I took part in a street protest in Novosibirsk on 24 February 2022.”

Of the ninety posts listed in the criminal indictment, she wrote one.

“I was involved in the publication dated 29 April 2022, [as charged] under Article 207.3, but I find it difficult to say exactly what role I played. [The text] was discussed at great length, and I didn’t really want to have anything to do with it at all. Either I acted as the author, after which it was heavily edited, or another person was the author, after which I heavily edited it,” the young woman explained in court.

Arkhipova’s support group runs a Telegram channel where her letters to the outside world are posted sometimes. In the “Cell Librarian” section, she talks about the books she has read in pretrial detention.

She also writes about the health problems typically experienced by prisoners. Due to poor nutrition, all women in the detention center lose their hair, and even a simple cold is dangerous.

“The worst part is that you’re not permitted to make your bed during the day, so you’re freezing and shivering, and all you have to cover yourself with is a towel. Illnesses are illnesses, but we still have to follow the prison rules!”

Arkhipova is a vegan. It is difficult to follow this diet in pretrial detention. She is very dependent on care packages, which arrive with considerable delays. Her support group secured permission to send her plant-based milk substitutes, but the detention center declined to accept them, stating, “We don’t even allow dairy products for mothers with children.”

“My motivation is simple: I oppose the war. I want a better future for Russia. I have tried to act on my conscience all my life, even though I haven’t always succeeded. When the war began, it was my conscience that wouldn’t let me stand idly by. People on both sides of the border deserve peace: soldiers should be with their families, not in foxholes, and those who were killed should have lived. I feel the same pain for everyone, regardless of their uniform,” said Arkhipova in her closing statement.

Mailing address for letters:

Russia 195009 St. Petersburg
11 Arsenalnaya St.
Pretrial Detention Center No. 5
Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region
Anna Nikolayevna Arkhipova, born 1997

Bank account numbers for donations: 2200 7008 6021 1167 (T-Bank) • 2202 2071 9921 3904 (Sberbank)

You can follow the latest news on the Telegram channel of Arkhipova’s support group.

Vasily Neustroyev, 30 years old

A resident of Petersburg, Vasily Neustroyev was charged with violating Article 280.4.3 (“publicly threatening national security”), Article 212.1.1 (“repeatedly violating the law on public assemblies”), Article 354.1.4 (“condoning Nazism”), Article 282.1.1 (“organizing an extremist community”) and Articles 207.3.2.b and 207.3.2.e (“disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian armed forces”) of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The charge that Neustroyev had violated Article 239.2 (“organizing an association that infringes on the personhood and rights of citizens”) was dropped due to the statute of limitations. The prosecution asked the court to sentence Neustroyev to twelve years in prison, but the judge sentenced him to ten years instead.

According to the prosecution, Neustroyev was on Vesna’s federal audit commission and was one of its leaders. Neustroyev himself stated in court that he did not make any decisions within the movement. He did not even have access to social media and could not have published any of the posts ascribed to him. He met most of his “accomplices” only after his arrest. Before his arrest, he was acquainted only with Khoroshenin and Maximov, and knew Zateyev only by sight.

When asked about Litvin—whom investigators consider the leader of Vesna and under whose influence the movement allegedly turned into an “extremist organization”—Neustroyev laughed and said that the main topic of their conversations had been cats.

“Since the autumn of 2018, we’ve been the owners of cats—brothers from the same litter, which we got from the same source,” Neustroyev explained. “Since then, Bogdan Gennadyevich has left his cat with me to look after two or three times. You could say that we became something like in-laws through the cats. The cats were the main topic of our conversations in the years leading up to my arrest.”

The Petersburger did not renounce his anti-war views in court.

“I consider the actions of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin not only a crime against both Ukraine and Russia in equal measure, but also a great folly.”

And yet, Neustroyev “remained skeptical of mass street protests.” He was a member of Petersburg Yabloko’s council and was heavily involved in elections work for a long time. He coordinated election monitoring, and since 2020 had been a voting member of one of the city’s Territorial Election Commissions.

In a letter from the detention center, Neustroev voiced deep regret that he had not yet managed to finish his university education. He had just resumed his studies before his arrest, and if not for the criminal case, he might already have a degree.

“Nevertheless, I still plan to eventually obtain a formal tertiary degree and put this source of anxiety behind me.”

He spoke about Russia in his closing statement.

“Russia is strong. Russia will survive all tyrants and dictators, just as it has done before. I know that Russia will be peaceful, Russia will be happy, Russia will be free. And all of us will be peaceful, happy, and free along with her.”

Mailing address for letters:

Bank account numbers for donations: 2202 2063 1466 1708 (Sberbank) • 2200 2460 0202 0868 (VTB) • 2200 7009 3739 5001 (Т-Bank)

You can follow the latest news on the Telegram channel of Neustroyev’s support group.

Pavel Sinelnikov, 24 years old

A resident of Barnaul, Pavel Sinelnikov was charged with violating Articles 282.1.1 and 282.1.2 (“organizing and participating in an extremist community”) of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The prosecution had asked the court to send him down for ten years, but instead the judge sentenced to him to seven and a half years in prison.

Sinelnikov served as Vesna’s executive secretary for several months but left the movement in 2021, long before it had been designated “extremist.”

“The work isn’t hard: you just sit there and write. But taking all those minutes is time-consuming and quite boring. So I really feel for the court clerk,” Sinelnikov explained in court.

He was baffled how the same person could be accused of both establishing an “extremist community” and participating in it, and he made no secret of the fact that the arrest had come as a shock to him.

“I didn’t expect at all that some police investigators would actually fly all the way from Moscow to Barnaul just to get me. As far as I’m concerned, the police search itself is a form of intense coercion, especially the way it’s done. They force their way into your life while yelling and shouting, don’t even let you get dressed, push you face-down on the floor, and then turn everything upside down while cracking high-school-level jokes,” Sinelnikov recalled.

He confessed immediately after his arrest, but later recanted his testimony.

“You can’t take away people’s opinions, but it’s easy to take away their freedom of speech. That’s what happened to me, even though I’m just a binnocent eyestander.”

In court, Sinelnikov explained that he had been fascinated by science and maths at school. He often traveled to academic competitions, and became interested in politics during one such trip to Moscow. He described himself as an introvert and a loner, and his mother even called her son a “slacker” in court.

“Well, Mom knows best,” Sinelnikov replied.

Sinelnikov began his closing statement by admitting that he didn’t really have much to say. But then he called the charges politically motivated and the trial “abhorrent.”

“There was no criminal extremist group. No one planned any crimes, no socially dangerous actions were committed, and there were no socially dangerous consequences either. No harm was done either to society or the public interest. We didn’t even have any motives for or intentions of doing so. Do I deserve ten years in prison for that?”

Mailing address for letters:

Bank account number for donations: 2200 7019 7373 4749

You can follow the latest news on the Telegram channel of Sinelnikov’s support group.

Yan Ksenzhepolsky, 25 years old

A resident of Tver, Yan Ksenzhepolsky was charged with violating Article 280.4.3 (“discrediting the Russian armed forces”), Article 212.1.1 (“repeatedly violating the law on public assemblies”), Article 354.1.4 (“condoning Nazism”), Article 282.1.1 (“organizing an extremist community”), and Articles 207.3.2.b and 207.3.2.e (“disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian armed forces”) of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The charge that he had violated Article 239.2 (“organizing an association that infringes on the personhood and rights of citizens”) was dropped due to the statute of limitations. The prosecution had asked the court to send him down for twelve years, but instead the judge sentenced to him to eleven years in prison.

Ksenzhepolsky joined Vesna’s federal coordinating council in August 2021. According to him, by October–November of that year his involvement in the council had become “nominal” due to his work commitments. He was employed as a welding production specialist at the National Welding Control Agency and served as an aide to a deputy in the Tver Regional Legislative Assembly.

“I realized that the Vesna movement made a lot of noise but didn’t accomplish anything tangible,” Ksenzhepolsky said in court. “Meanwhile, I was involved in real institutional politics at the Legislative Assembly and could actually influence things—or at least try to.”

On paper, however, Ksenzhepolsky remained a member of Vesna until the summer of 2022.

Ksenzhepolsky is accused of posting on the movement’s Telegram channels, although, according to him, he had access to only one of them, “Tver Vesna,” which had sixteen subscribers. He handed over the password to the new administrator in November 2021, when he left the organization.

In court, Ksenzepolsky reiterated that he believes street protests in Russia are ineffective.

“I believe these actions are completely pointless and do more harm than good.”

In September 2022, when Russia announced a military mobilization, Ksenzhepolsky, according to his own testimony, was on holiday in Georgia but returned home—after Vesna had been declared an “extremist” organization.

“In any case, I know that we will ultimately be vindicated in the eyes of society, history, and the Last Judgment. After all, everything was forever, until it was no more. This regime will come to an end too, and within our lifetimes, something tells me. If not, then the Kingdom of Heaven is not a bad consolation prize,” said Ksenzhepolsky in his closing statement.

Mailing address for letters:

Bank account number for donations: 2200 2479 5715 1401

You can follow the latest news on the Telegram channel of Ksenzhepolsky’s support group.

Valentin Khoroshenin, 24 years old

A resident of Petersburg, Khoroshenin was charged with violating Article 212.1.1 (“repeatedly violating the law on public assemblies”) and Article 354.1.4 (“condoning Nazism”) of the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The charge that he had violated Article 239.2 of the Criminal Code was dropped due to the statute of limitations. The prosecution asked the court to send Khoroshenin to prison for eight years, but he was sentenced to six years and two months behind bars.

A co-founder of the now-shuttered Fogel lecture bar in Petersburg, Khoroshenin was the sole defendant who not only pleaded guilty to the charges but also testified against the other defendants in the case and many other Vesna activists.

The names mentioned by Valentin Khoroshenin in his testimony: Vladimir Arzhanov, Yekaterina Alexandrova, Makar Andreyev, Nikolai Artemenko, Anna Arkhipova, Yekaterina Bushkova, Alexander Vereshchagin, Yekaterina Goncharova, Timofei Gorodilov, Anastasia Gof, Lev Gyammer, Semyon Yerkin, Yevgeny Zateyev, Semyon Zakhariev, Anastasia Kadetova, Vladimir Kazachenko, Alexander Kashevarov, Gleb Kondratyev, Semyon Kochkin, Yan Ksenzhepolsky, Ilya Kursov, Maria Lakhina, Nikita Levkin, Bogdan Litvin, Andrei Lozitsky, Alexandra Lukyanenko, Yelizaveta Lyubavina (Sofya Manevich), Ilya Lyubimov, Timofei Martynchenko, Daria Mernenko, Anzhelika Mustafina, Anna Nazarova, Vasily Neustroyev, Maxim Potemkin, Konstantin Pokhilchuk, Kira Pushkareva, Lilia Safronova, Pavel Sinelnikov, Yevgenia Fedotova, Anastasia Filippova, Artur Kharitonov, Alexei Shvarts

Khoroshenin’s testimony came as a surprise to everyone in court. He requested that the testimony be heard in closed session and asked that the public and the press be removed from the courtroom, but the judge turned down his request.

Khoroshenin did not merely agree with the charge of “extremism.” He called Vesna “a sort of incubator for Navalny.” His testimony suggested that the movement’s branches were directly linked to the opposition politician’s field offices, where distinguished young activists would then “move up the ranks.” Khoroshenin mentioned the “grant support” that Vesna received, including from “undesirable organizations,” and complained that rank-and-file activists “spent the night in a back room, while Litvin bought himself a new apartment.”

“We systematically violated the law. We held protests and placed ourselves above the law. There were also slogans about undermining the country’s defense capabilities and justifying the use of violence. We organized events that violated existing laws but looked good on the surface,” Khoroshenin said in court.

“I have always believed that everything I am involved in should bring something positive to people. The Vesna movement was perhaps the only exception to this rule,” he argued, adding that he no longer supports any of the points in Vesna’s platform except for the one regarding support for “family and motherhood.”

Toward the end of his court testimony, Khoroshenin urged the other defendants to plead guilty—“to change their stance on the charges against them and set aside ideological pretense.”

“Don’t dig your own graves, colleagues!” he said.

In a letter from the detention center, Anna Arkhipova later quoted the words Khoroshenin had spoken after the hearing: “What really matters isn’t what actually happened, but how the investigator wrote it up.”

In his final statement, Khoroshenin lamented that his former comrades in Vesna had made him look like “some kind of Luntik,” once again acknowledged his guilt, asked for forgiveness “from society and especially from his family,” and voiced his hope that the court would allow him “to return to a normal life for constructive self-realization for the benefit of society.”

Mailing address for letters:

Bank account number for donations: 4476 2461 7307 7443

You can follow the latest news on the Telegram channel of Khoroshenin’s support group.

Source: Yelizaveta Nesterova and Pavel Vasiliev, “’What really matters isn’t what actually happened, but how the investigator wrote it up’: What you need to know about the Vesna movement, whose activists have been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison,” Mediazona, 7 April 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

Is Daria Egereva a Terrorist?

Daria Egereva, a decolonial activist and spokeswoman for the Selkup, an indigenous ethnic minority in Siberia, has been accused of “involvement in a terrorist organization” as part of a major criminal case against ten individuals and “other persons,” according to an appellate ruling by the Moscow City Court that has been uneartherd by Mediazona.

Egereva was detained and remanded in custody in December 2025. Decolonial activists then reported that she had been accused of involvement with the Aboriginal Forum [aka Aborigen Forum], an association of experts on the indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities of the Russian North. The organization was banned twice in Russia in 2024.

According to the appellate ruling, Egereva faces eight criminal charges: disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army; calling for separatism; participating in an “extremist” organization; inciting hatred or enmity; condoning Nazism; creating and participating in a terrorist community and a terrorist organization; and desecrating the Russian flag or coat of arms.

One of the well-known individuals implicated in the case is Petersburg journalist Maxim Kuzakhmetov. He was arrested in absentia and placed on the wanted list.

What specifically prompted the criminal case against Daria Egereva is unclear. The Moscow City Court’s ruling states that the activist’s defense team denies the charges.

Source: “Activist Daria Egereva accused, alongside Maxim Kuzakhmetov, of ‘involvement in terrorist organization’ as part of major criminal case,” Mediazona, 3 April 2026. Translated by the Russian Reader

Today, March 12, Moscow’s Basmanny Court held another hearing on Daria Egereva’s pretrial detention. The court extended her pretrial detention for three months, as requested by government investigators. The hearing was held in public and was attended by diplomats from several embassies, her husband, and her children. She is facing 20 years in jail on terrorism charges.

“Being held in a Russian prison is a tremendous ordeal for anyone. I spent five days in this nightmare in 2021. For me, it’s like five years of my life. Daria has already been held for 86 days, and her sentence was extended by 92 days. This is terrible, unlawful, a violation of rights. Demand Daria Egereva’s release!” – Andrei Danilov, Saami Indigenous representative.

“Last time, Daria Egereva’s detention was extended by a month; now it’s been extended to three. Despite appeals from Indigenous representatives from various countries, Daria remains in custody. It’s heartbreaking to see how the solidarity of people around the world in this situation is simply ignored.” – Aivana Enmynkau, Nuvuqaghmiit Indigenous representative.

On December 17, 2025, a large-scale, coordinated wave of repressive actions against Indigenous Peoples and their human rights defenders occurred in Russia. On that day, Darya Egereva, an ethnic Selkup, was arrested in Moscow. She is a co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) and a long-standing participant in the international Indigenous rights movement. Daria’s colleagues and the international civil society connect her detention to climate change activism.

The website and the petition supporting Daria Egereva were launched as a part of the International Solidarity Campaign calling to #FreeDariaEgereva, where you can send a letter to Daria or find other ways to support her.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Tatiana Shauro
Solidarity Campaign Communications Coordinator
tatianashauro@gmail.com

Source: “Russian Court Extends Detention of Indigenous Climate Activist Daria Egereva for Three More Months,” Cultural Survival, 12 March 2026

The International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia (ICIPR) strongly condemns the new wave of repression against Indigenous human rights defenders in the Russian Federation, including their prosecution on fabricated charges of “extremism” and “terrorism” brought by the Russian authorities.

ICIPR considers these actions to constitute a deliberate misuse of anti-extremism and counter-terrorism legislation aimed at suppressing peaceful human rights work. We further regard them as a serious violation of the international obligations of the Russian Federation as a Member State of the United Nations, including its obligations under the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — in particular the prohibition of reprisals for cooperation with United Nations mechanisms.

On 17 December 2025, Ms. Daria Egereva was arrested in Moscow. She is an Indigenous Selkup human rights defender, Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), and a member of the United Nations Indigenous Peoples’ Coordinating Body (UN ICB). She has been charged with participation in the activities of a so-called “terrorist organization,” an offence carrying a potential sentence of 10 to 20 years of imprisonment.

These charges are based on her alleged association with the Indigenous human rights defenders’ network Aborigen Forum, as well as on her many years of human rights work with the Centre for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North (CSIPN). Notably, CSIPN was explicitly identified in UN Human Rights Council resolution 60/21 of 7 October 2025 among organizations subjected to forced closure and persecution by the Russian Federation.

The Aborigen Forum network, of which CSIPN was a member, was designated an “extremist organization” by the Russian authorities in July 2024, despite the fact that its members have never engaged in any acts of violence that could meet the definition of terrorism. At all times, the activities of the network and its members were peaceful, lawful, and focused on human rights advocacy, carried out exclusively through non-violent means and aimed at the protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including through engagement with United Nations mechanisms.

Following its designation, the network decided to immediately dissolve and cease its activities; nevertheless, in December 2024 the Russian authorities included Aborigen Forum in the list of terrorist organizations.

On the same day, 17 December 2025, another human rights defender was arrested in Moscow under the same terrorism-related charges.

At the same time, beginning on 17 December 2025, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) launched a series of coordinated searches and interrogations targeting Indigenous activists and human rights defenders across the country, including in the Altai Republic, Tomsk, Murmansk and Kemerovo Oblasts, Altai Krai, Taimyr and Krasnoyarsk Krai, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and the city of Saint Petersburg. These operations targeted members of Indigenous communities, including Selkups, Tubalars, Chulyms, Shors, Kumandins, Dolgan, Yukaghirs, Evenks, Sámi, and Nganasans.

On the same day, a separate search was conducted in Murmansk Oblast at the home of Ms. Valentina Sovkina, a member of the Sámi Indigenous People and of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII).

According to currently available information, at least 17 Indigenous leaders in different regions of the Russian Federation have been searched and interrogated by FSB. All their electronic devices have been confiscated.

ICIPR views these developments as politically motivated persecution and as a continuation of the systematic criminalization of peaceful Indigenous human rights work, including cooperation with international human rights mechanisms and participation in the work of the United Nations.

Call for International Solidarity

In light of this sharp escalation of repression against Indigenous Peoples, ICIPR hereby announces the launch of an international solidarity action by Indigenous Peoples and allies worldwide in support of Indigenous Peoples in Russia who are being targeted by state repression, including Indigenous human rights defenders.

We call upon Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and movements worldwide, UN bodies and mechanisms, including Special Procedures, States, academic institutions, and human rights organizations and civil society actors to speak out against these reprisals, to demand the immediate cessation of politically motivated prosecutions, and to uphold the fundamental principle that engagement with the United Nations must never be criminalized.

Solidarity is not optional — it is a shared moral responsibility.

We urge all partners to mobilize in solidarity. Further details on modalities and next steps will be shared shortly.

Communication contact – icipr.info@gmail.com

#StandWithDariaEgereva

#DariaEgereva

#JusticeForDariaAnd17

#FreeDariaEgereva

Source: “ICIPR Statement on the Persecution of Indigenous Peoples’ Representatives in Russia on Fabricated Charges of ‘Terrorism’ and ‘Extremism,'” International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia, 19 December 2025

Asylum Seekers

Kazakh authorities have granted Russia’s request to extradite activist Yulia Yemelyanova, a former employee of the late Alexei Navalny’s Petersburg office. According to the Russian opposition-in-exile’s Anti-War Committee, Kazakhstan violated its own protocols in making the decision to extradite Yemelyanova, as the Russian activist’s application for asylum is still under review in the country.

This past October, Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office had guaranteed that extradition requests would not be considered until all administrative procedures related to obtaining asylum were completed. Yemelyanova’s defense intends to appeal the extradition decision to the country’s Supreme Court.

Yemelyanova was detained on Aug. 31, 2025, at Almaty airport while in transit to a third country. She has been held in pretrial detention ever since. In Russia, she is being prosecuted for theft (Part 2, Article 158 of the Criminal Code) in connection with a 2021 incident in which she allegedly stole a mobile phone from a taxi driver. Yemelyanova’s defense calls the case fabricated. It was sent to court in July 2022, by which time the activist had already left Russia.

Yemelyanova is the fourth Russian asylum seeker since late January to be handed a deportation decision from Kazakh officials. The others are Chechen Mansur Movlaev, an open critic of Ramzan Kadyrov; Crimean resident Oleksandr Kachkurkin, who is facing treason charges in Russia; and Yevgeny Korobov, an officer who deserted from the Russian army.

Source: “Kazakhstan moves to extradite former employee of Navalny’s St. Petersburg office to Russia,” The Insider, 11 February 2026

Dmytro Kulyk with his wife Oksana and daughter Elina. Source: Daily Beast

A Ukrainian dad escaped Vladimir Putin’s drone and missile attacks back home only to be grabbed by a band of ICE stooges in a Walmart parking lot in Minneapolis.

“I hoped I would find peace in America. I’ve done everything the government required, I don’t understand why I am behind bars,” Dmytro Kulyk told the Daily Beast from the Kandiyohi County Jail in Willmar, Minnesota.

The 39-year-old father was getting a pickup order at a Walmart in Maple Grove when he found himself surrounded by immigration agents last month. He’d been working as a delivery driver to make ends meet, while also supporting his family by doing roofing work.

Kulyk legally entered the U.S. in late 2023 along with his wife, 38, and daughter, who’s now 5. The family was sponsored by U.S. citizens as part of the Uniting 4 Ukraine program, a humanitarian program set up in April 2022 to allow Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war to live and work in the U.S. on “parole.”

Once the initial two-year parole period expires, entrants can file for re-parole to remain in the country longer. That’s exactly what Kulyk says he did. His wife and daughter’s applications were approved. But his remained pending.

He said he was putting groceries in his car on Jan. 1 when he was approached by three ICE agents.

“I explained to the ICE officers that the war was killing people, that my wife had a disability, that it was violence, terrorism which we had escaped from but one of them began to laugh,” Kulyk told The Daily Beast. “I asked why he was laughing and I was told that he was pro-Russian, wanted Russia to win the war.”

DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

He can’t understand why he’s been treated like a criminal. He did everything by the book, he says–paying taxes and filing his immigration paperwork on time, working multiple jobs to take care of his family. He had no criminal record to speak of.

His immigration attorney, Julia Bikbova, suggested his re-parole application may have intentionally been stalled to provide immigration authorities with a pretext to deport him.

“Our government, our Homeland Security, promised Ukrainians to protect them during the war. There are approximately 280,000 Ukrainians on U4U, Uniting for Ukraine program in the United States, including the Kulyk family,” she told the Daily Beast.

“My client did everything the government required him to do: on June 5 he applied for the re-parole and his wife paid $2,040 of fees for her and child’s granted applications. His wife and daughter have recently received their re-paroles but he has not, his application is pending.

“ICE detained him as ‘illegal’ and began deportation proceedings: This is a sick way of forcing a man with a clean criminal record to become unlawful in the U.S. by delaying the review of his application, which the very same authority had requested to file.”

Kulyk is now terrified he’ll be sent to the frontlines to fight Vladimir Putin’s troops if he is deported back home. He and his family endured relentless Russian attacks before finally deciding to flee their home in the Odesa region in 2023. When they saw ruins on their own street in Chornomorsk, they called their friends in Texas and asked for help, leading to their enrollment in the U4U program thanks to having U.S. citizens as sponsors.

Kulyk now can’t stop worrying about his wife, Oksana, and daughter, Elina.

“I am worried they can drag my wife and kid out of our home,” he told The Daily Beast, adding that he wanted to appeal directly to American authorities to make them understand he’d done nothing wrong.

“Please hear me: I came to America to escape the war, to pray in church and work hard. But now my heartbroken and sick wife has lost over 10 pounds since ICE arrested me on January 1. She’s been panicking, and my little daughter has been crying without me every night – this is unjust,” he said.

Oksana says she’s been too “terrified and lost” to leave home while her husband is locked up, afraid that immigration agents might return for the rest of the family.

“I am too scared to drive my 5-year-old daughter to school in my husband’s car. I’m terrified ICE will detain me and our daughter will end up alone,” she told The Daily Beast. “This is just as scary as the war in Ukraine, except now we don’t have Dmytro with us. Our daughter Elina cries herself to sleep with her cat plushie. She says the toy is daddy.”

Most Ukrainian refugees are women and children but some men have also left the country for various reasons. Kulyk was granted a permit to leave in order to care for a family member with a medical condition.

But Kulyk is not the only Ukrainian refugee to be swept up in the Trump administration’s controversial immigration crackdown.

Nearly 1,000 miles away, in Philadelphia, Zhanna was poring over messages in a group chat of 349 other refugees called “Ukrainians in Detention.” She joined the group last month, when her friends Andrii and Yaroslav ended up in detention. Although Bartosh has legal Temporary Protected Status, she stopped going to the office and now works from home.

“ICE rounds up men who buy tools or work in construction, so every day I call my husband, a construction worker, to check if he is OK. Even when the war started in Ukraine and we had to escape abroad, the same morning I wasn’t as stressed as I am now,” she told the Daily Beast. “In our chat I read that all arrestees are men, that at least five of them have signed up for self-deportation… but where is there to go now? Europe is also deporting Ukrainians. Our TPS is good until October but we want to understand, are we really legal in the United States, or is it time to pack up our suitcases again?”

Immigration attorneys count about 300 cases of detained Ukrainians across the United States and up to 150 refugees deported to Ukraine, Bikbova said.

“Most of the arrested Ukrainians are men, the majority of them have a clean criminal record but as we see in Kulyk’s case, they are equated to people who jumped the border, broke the law,” attorney Bikbova told the Daily Beast. “Behind every deported man, there are crying women and children, left without support. For some mysterious reason, we see male Ukrainian refugees being arrested and put on airplanes. If he gets deported, my client Kulyk will most certainly go to the front.”

Trump’s administration has also been deporting Russian asylum seekers. According to a report by Current Times, more than 50,000 Russians have fled the war and political repression to the U.S. since February 2022. Journalist Ilya Azar has been covering the deportations for Novaya Gazeta.

“They send out 40-60 people on each plane. There have been five airplanes,” Azar told the Daily Beast on Tuesday. The deportation planes transit to Russia through Egypt, and Russian security services meet the deported citizens. Azar’s report noted that “all men received draft notices” upon their arrival in December.

Source: Anna Nemtsova, “Laughing ICE Goons Seize Dad Who Fled Ukraine War at Walmart,” Daily Beast, 12 February 2026. The emphasis, above, is mine. \\\\\TRR

German authorities last week denied asylum to 47-year-old engineer Georgy Avaliani, who deserted from the front line in 2022. His wife and two children were rejected alongside him.

“There is no reason to believe that, upon returning to the Russian Federation, they would face a high probability of persecution or serious harm,” wrote an official from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), despite Avaliani’s account of being tortured after fleeing the front.

Mediazona has reviewed BAMF decisions in Avaliani’s case and those of other deserters, discovering that officials are producing boilerplate documents that repeat one another almost word for word. In justifying the refusals, the German agency argues, for instance, that mobilisation in Russia was intended to “strengthen the armed forces” rather than repress dissent, and therefore cannot be considered political persecution. They further say that mobilisation has effectively ended because Vladimir Putin announced it—verbally.

When describing potential punishments for deserters, officials cite not the criminal code but an administrative article regarding failure to comply with military registration duties. They even specify that the maximum penalty is a fine of €302.

Most notably, in every decision examined, BAMF cites Mediazona’s own article from 2023, “Evading > refusing > fleeing. A year of mobilization in Russia through trials and verdicts”, as evidence that mobilised men face little more than a fine. That article noted that, at the time of publication, failing to respond to a summons did not yet carry a heavy penalty. While the situation has since changed—an eventuality the original article warned about—the original reference remains in the German files.

Relying on information from that article is also fundamentally flawed because BAMF applies it to people already wanted under serious criminal charges for desertion or abandoning their unit. In its rulings, the agency ignores the severity of these consequences, lumping deserters in with those who simply left Russia when mobilisation was first announced. This is exactly what happened to Georgy Avaliani.

A year in a refugee camp

Avaliani, an engineer, arrived in Germany with his wife, Oksana, and their two children on January 26, 2025. By then Georgy, who was drafted shortly after mobilisation began and later deserted, had been on a federal wanted list for over six months.

The family was granted asylum-seeker status without an initial investigation into the specifics of their escape. Like other applicants, they were placed in temporary housing: a small portacabin with two bunk beds at the former Tempelhof airport site. Their journey to Germany had been arduous. On January 18, Georgy, who had managed to leave Russia before his name appeared on the wanted list, met his wife and children in Bosnia. From there, they travelled to the Croatian border and requested asylum.

In Croatia, the asylum process is largely a formality; in practice, obtaining protection there is nearly impossible. Consequently, many migrants use it only as an entry point into the EU before heading to countries with functioning reception systems. The Avalianis did the same. After a preliminary registration in Croatia, they spent a week travelling to Berlin.

For nearly a year, the family was cramped in a camp with 2,000 other applicants. Finally, just before the start of 2026, they were moved to a hostel in western Berlin. But Georgy’s hopes of integration (he had been diligently learning German and hoped to return to engineering) were soon shuttered. On January 16, just two weeks after their move, BAMF rejected the entire family’s asylum claim.

Avaliani intends to appeal. If he fails, the family must leave Germany within 30 days or face deportation to Russia, where Georgy faces up to 10 years in prison for abandoning his unit during a period of mobilisation. Despite having clear evidence of persecution, the German authorities have ignored his claims.

The two escapes of Private Avaliani

Before the war, Georgy Avaliani was a well-paid engineer at the Moscow water utility, Mosvodokanal. He had no plans to leave Russia. Shortly before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he even enrolled in a seminary to pursue a religious education.

Georgy had never served in the army due to a heart condition. However, following the “partial mobilisation” announcement, he received a summons on October 6, 2022. At the time, his three children were minors; by law, as the father of a large family, he should have been exempt. The couple tried to contest the draft through the military enlistment office and the prosecutor’s office but failed. Georgy chose not to go into hiding, unwilling to abandon his family.

After a medical commission in November, he was sent to a training camp in the Moscow region and then to the occupied Svatove district of the Luhansk region. His unit was stationed in the village of Novoselivske, 20 km from the front line. After a few days, noticing the chaos within the unit, Avaliani decided to slip away, gambling that no one would notice his absence. He reached a nearby road and hitched a ride to the village of Troitske, a gathering point for mobilised men.

Part of a local hospital had been turned into a shelter for soldiers with nowhere else to go—some had lost their units, others were waiting to withdraw their pay, and some were recovering from wounds.

While staying there, Georgy met another mobilised soldier. They shared the same grim impression of the front and a desperate desire to return home. They found three others who felt the same and hired a taxi driver to take them to a spot where they could cross the border on foot.

After the driver dropped them off, the group split up. Along the way, Avaliani and his companion heard a helicopter. Georgy later told journalists and BAMF officials that the second group had been gunned down from the air. While there is no independent confirmation of this, Avaliani and the other man survived only to be detained in an abandoned village.

There is little doubt Georgy made this journey on foot; “Goodbye to Arms”, a project that assists deserters, thoroughly verified his route. Alexei Alshansky, a coordinator for the organisation, says the helicopter story is the only detail rights activists have been unable to confirm.

Following his capture, Avaliani was thrown into “a basement” for 10 days. He says he was beaten repeatedly and subjected to mock executions. Mediazona has previously reported on this location, known as the Zaitsevo Centre for the Detention of Servicemen, based on the testimony of another deserter, Sergei Savchenko. Volunteers from “Goodbye to Arms” identified the site in the occupied village of Rassypne by comparing testimonies with video footage.

From the basement, Georgy was sent to an assault unit. Two days later, an ammunition dump near their position exploded. Avaliani suffered a concussion and a heart attack. He was sent to a distribution point where he befriended the doctor issuing referrals. The medic sent him to a hospital inside Russia, hinting that he could just as easily head straight for Moscow instead of the ward.

Avaliani did exactly that. After reuniting with his family, he hid at a dacha in the Tula region. Occasionally, he ventured to Lyubertsy for medical treatment. As time passed he grew less cautious, but in mid-February 2024 military police arrested him outside his home.

He was sent to Kaliningrad in western Russia, the permanent base of his unit, to await his fate. When a commander learned of Georgy’s engineering background, he set him to work renovating his private dacha. Meanwhile, Georgy pushed for a formal medical commission. When it finally took place, the results were surprising: he was not only declared fit for service but his category was upgraded from “partially fit” to “fit with minor restrictions”.

In May, he was told to report for questioning regarding a criminal case. Georgy fled again. On the way to the commander’s dacha, he got a taxi and flew to St Petersburg. His wife met him there to hand over his passport. From there he flew to Belarus, then Uzbekistan, Georgia and finally Montenegro, where he was taken in by a Swedish artist for whom he helped build a swimming pool.

Oksana remained in Lyubertsy with the children. Weeks after her husband left, an investigator began calling her. Georgy was placed on a federal wanted list.

In September 2024, security forces raided the family home. They confiscated phones from Oksana and the children, returning them only two weeks later. The stress caused Oksana to suffer a nervous breakdown, leading to a month-long stay in a psychiatric clinic. The visits from military police continued; the last raid occurred on January 7, 2025. After that, Oksana finally agreed to leave Russia.

Georgy has spoken openly to the press about his escape. In Montenegro, he was interviewed by Current Time TV. The family crossed the German border accompanied by a journalist from Die Welt, which later published a detailed account. A report for the Franco-German channel Arte was also filmed by Russian journalist in exile Masha Borzunova.

The first six months in Germany were particularly precarious. Under EU law, the migration service could have deported the family back to Croatia, their first point of entry. To prevent this, Georgy sought help from the church.

The tradition of Kirchenasyl, or church asylum, began in 1983 after Cemal Kemal Altun, a 23-year-old Turkish activist, took his own life in a West Berlin court while facing extradition. His death moved church communities to unite to protect refugees from deportation. Every year, hundreds of people receive a reprieve through this practice. The Avalianis were among them.

“It is a semi-legal, more like a cultural phenomenon that works differently in different states,” explains Alshansky. “The church gives the applicant a document stating they are under their care, and the authorities leave them alone.”

Thanks to this intervention, BAMF could not reject the family simply because they entered via Croatia. They were forced to consider the case on its merits. They rejected it anyway.

BAMF’s motivation

During his personal hearing, Georgy Avaliani detailed his service and desertion. When asked what he feared if returned to Russia, he replied: “I fear for my life. Legally, I could be imprisoned for up to 20 years. But more likely, I will be killed before trial or in prison… I know for certain that if they find me, a subhuman death awaits me.”

His wife, Oksana, tried to explain the psychological toll the military police raids had taken on her and the children. The family provided lots of evidence: the mobilisation order, the wanted notice from the interior ministry’s website, a letter from a German humanitarian organisation, medical records and Georgy’s military ID.

In its rejection, the agency claimed the Avalianis were “apolitical people”, making it unclear why they believed the Russian state would view them as opponents. BAMF argued that if they were truly targeted, Georgy would never have been able to leave Russia so easily.

Having erroneously stated that Avaliani faced only an administrative fine, the official added that it was “not evident that in the applicants’ case, due to specific circumstances, a different [punishment] should apply”.

The document also asserted that officials found no evidence that mobilisation continued after Putin’s verbal announcement. Even if it were to resume, BAMF argued, it was not certain Avaliani would be called up again, given Russia’s 25 million reservists.

“Even taking into account that the applicant evaded mobilisation, it is not to be expected that… he would be subjected to the inhuman or degrading treatment required to grant asylum,” the decision stated.

The agency concluded the family could lead a dignified life in Russia. Despite the economic crisis, the official noted that people in Russia are still provided with food, social benefits and pensions. “It is not seen that… they would find themselves in a completely hopeless situation,” the ruling said. Their physical and mental health was also deemed insufficient to require treatment specifically in Germany.

A template for rejection

Alshansky attributes the BAMF decision to the wave of draft evaders who fled to Europe after 2022.

“A crowd of people rushed to claim asylum over mobilisation, some without even a summons,” he says. “I think they have exhausted the Germans to the point where, as soon as they see a Russian applicant and the word ‘mobilisation’, they just churn out this rejection.” Artyom Klyga, from the rights organisation Connection E. V., confirms that around 1,000 Russians have requested asylum in Germany due to mobilisation.

Alshansky points out that the rejection text clearly treats Avaliani as a mere draft dodger rather than a man who fled the front and is now a fugitive. He believes BAMF compiled the document from fragments of other cases without truly studying Georgy’s story. “I have compared this rejection with others. It is a template; paragraph after paragraph is identical. They just changed the personal details in a Word file,” Klyga agrees.

Mediazona compared several BAMF decisions regarding Russians who fled mobilisation. The similarities are striking. In the case of a young man who left after an attempt to serve him a summons, the agency also cited Putin’s words on the end of mobilisation. The description of the economic situation in Russia—including the detail that 15% of Russians live below the poverty line—is identical in both his and Avaliani’s files.

In another case involving a reservist who left on a tourist visa, the agency used the same argument: that mobilisation is about military strength, not political vengeance. That document also cited the same €302 fine.

The same arguments were used against Anton Sh., a deserter from Ufa whose story was covered by Sever.Realii. He had been tortured in the same Zaitsevo cellar, where guards pulled out almost all of his teeth. Despite his ordeal and the fact he is wanted in Russia, BAMF ruled he faced no danger because he had been able to leave the country freely.

Georgy Avaliani is now consulting with lawyers to appeal. “From my interview, it is perfectly clear that my situation is different [from other cases BAMF cited in the rejection]. This rejection shows that these people either cannot read or didn’t bother to try,” he said.

Even if his appeal fails, Georgy has no intention of returning. “I didn’t come here for tastier sausage, but to avoid dying in prison,” he says. “I had a good job in Russia. I will never reach that standard of living here; I’m not 20 or even 30 years old anymore. I didn’t travel far for a better life. I left solely because of persecution. Pity they don’t understand that.”

“Goodbye to Arms” estimates there are currently about 100 Russian deserters in Germany. For others planning to follow Avaliani’s route through Croatia, Alshansky recommends heading to other countries, such as Spain, where he says the bureaucratic logic remains more straightforward than in Germany.

Source: “Rubber‑stamping rejections. Germany turns away Russian army deserters who refused to fight in Ukraine, claiming they face only a fine back home,” Mediazona, 5 February 2026. Thanks to News from Ukraine Bulletin for the heads-up. The emphasis, above, is mine. \\\\\TRR

Alexander Krichevsky of Izhevsk: Six Years in Prison for a Comment

In September 2024, Alexander Krichevsky, a 58-year-old resident of Izhevsk, posted a lengthy comment on a Chechen opposition blogger’s Telegram channel. In the comment, Krichevsky compared Putin and the “FSB clique” to a “darkness” which must be destroyed. The security forces deemed this statement incitement to murder the president and FSB officers. They monitored the man and intercepted his internet traffic. Last December, Krichevsky was detained and remanded in custody to a pretrial detention center despite his ailments and the fact that he is confined to a wheelchair. His ailing mother was placed in a care home, where she died a month later. Today, at the Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg, where Krichevsky’s case is being heard, the prosecutor requested that he be given the maximum sentence of six years in prison.

“That is why we listen to him, because he is not afraid—he’s a ray of freedom in a kingdom of darkness! And only together will we destroy this darkness, only when we understand that we have only one enemy—Putin and his FSB clique. . . . Both you and we must destroy this enemy to continue living as peaceful neighbors,” 58-year-old Izhevsk resident Alexander Krichevsky wrote in a chat on the channel of opposition Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov aka Abu Saddam Shishani, on 11 September 2024.

This was Krichevsky’s response to a user who had asked Abdurakhmanov himself in a chat: “Tumso, aren’t you afraid that Kadyrov’s people might find you?”

When questioned in court, Krichevsky said that he was sure he was responding to the user personally, not writing in a public chat. He repeated many times that he had only figurative “destruction” in mind and had been trying to “reconcile” Abdurakhmanov’s readership by pointing out that they had only one enemy.

“Of course, I wasn’t even thinking about physically destroying such a large number of people and didn’t understand how [what I wrote] would even look. Apparently, my love for pretty words—all those rays of light and other nonsense—let me down. I was thinking in terms of games: when a person plays checkers or chess, they destroy their opponent’s pieces. Roughly speaking, that was the image I had in my head,” Krichevsky said in court.

The FSB operative who discovered Krichevsky’s comment saw it not as criticism alone, but also as a “public call to murder the president of the Russian Federation and officers of the Federal Security Service.”

The same conclusion was reached by Polina Komova, a philologist and expert at the Ministry of Internal Affairs Forensic Center in Udmurtia. She acknowledged in court that the word “destroy” could have other meanings “depending on the context,” but in her opinion it could be understood only in its literal meaning—that is, “to end [someone’s] existence, to exterminate”—in Krichevsky’s comment.

“He was planning a terrorist attack involving self-detonation”: wiretapping and arrest

The security forces began monitoring Krichevsky in early December 2024. It emerged in court that the FSB had requested data on his calls and connections from Rostelecom and learned that on 11 September, when he wrote the comment, he had accessed Telegram from home. Megafon provided the security forces with information about the base stations in the area where Krichevsky’s phone number pinged that day.

On 5 December 2024, the Supreme Court of Udmurtia gave the FSB permission to tap Krichevsky’s phones, and a few days later it approved “gathering information from technical communication channels and acquiring computer information.” A few days before Krichevsky’s arrest, operatives monitored his apartment to “document illegal activities.” The report states that Krichevsky did not leave his home.

On 19 December 2024, Krichevsky was detained and sent to a pretrial detention center. He described his arrest to journalists.

“There was a knock on the door at seven in the morning, and seven people came into [our] small flat: five FSB officers and two eyewitnesses. I opened the door myself. They immediately sat me down on a chair in the hallway. My ailing mother was lying there, barely alive. They said, ‘Can you hand over [your phone]?’ They tried to intimidate me once: ‘If you refuse, we’ll take you away and charge you with additional offenses.’ I realized that resistance was futile. I gave them the phone, and they looked at it and took what they needed.”

The social media comment charges against Krichevsky were accompanied by an FSB report containing much more serious, but in effect unproven, allegations. The document states that, according to “intelligence,” Krichevsky, who opposes the “state’s political course” and the conduct of the “special military operation,” supported radical Islamists fighting for Ukraine and was planning to convert to Islam and carry out a terrorist attack in Udmurtia “by blowing himself up with cooking gas.” The court never did hear what this report was based on.

“None of my comments or my own thoughts bear this out. When I heard this business about blowing myself up . . . In this case, everything that the prosecutor has just read aloud is pure speculation on the part of the investigators. None of my quotes corroborates it,” Krichevsky said in court.

Judge Alexander Raitsky simply reminded Krichevsky that the case centered on a single [social media] comment, which the defendant himself did not disput, and that the court would evaluate the evidence in the deliberation room.

The case file also contains another comment by Krichevsky from the same written exchange: “Many empires have collapsed in this world. I myself foresee the end of the Russkies [rusnya]. I don’t feel sorry for them: let them collapse with a bang. That’s where they belong. I myself hate these FSBniks, pigs [cops], and other scum who suck the blood of our homeland and shit on our neighbors.”

The security forces deemed this “a statement containing a negative assessment of the group of persons sharing the profession of Federal Security Service officers and police officers,” but it was not included in the indictment.

Responding to the judge’s question about this comment, Krichevsky said that he sometimes tried to “adapt” to the rude tone of the conversation [on the Telegram channel’s chat].

“My mother died four weeks after my arrest”: wheelchair-bound in a detention center

Krichevsky had worked as a systems administrator in Izhevsk before his arrest.

As a child, Krichevsky had moved with his family from Udmurtia to Rostov-on-Don. After high school, he enrolled in medical school, but in 1989 he broke his spine and had to drop out because his left leg was paralyzed and he had lost feeling in his right leg. After a long period of rehabilitation, he was able to walk again, but was unable to recover fully: he had a severe limp and had difficulty going up stairs.

Krichevsky said in court that his father had committed suicide on 11 September 2008.

“He had terminal cancer. He was in serious pain and turned to me because I was in medical school. He wanted me to tell him what poison he could use to commit suicide. I refused to do it. Then, two days before his death, I noticed he was sharpening a knife in an odd way. He died in a rather original way, if that word is appropriate in this situation—he stabbed himself in the heart with a knife,” Krichevsky told the court.

In early 2010, during a trip to Thailand, Krichevsky broke his left leg, which had been paralyzed since his [accident in 1989]. He underwent surgery at a local hospital, but he could not stay in hospital for long because his visa had expired. Krichevsky returned to his hometown of Izhevsk, where he underwent a second operation, but his condition only worsened.

“My knee wouldn’t straighten. They tried to do something about it, but because I had spinal injuries, my knee spasmed, and it remained crooked and they couldn’t do anything about it. And my hip didn’t recover either; I also had a fractured hip,” Krichevsky told the court.

Since then, Krichevsky has been confined to a wheelchair. Other ailments have also emerged: kidney problems, emphysema, and head tremors.

“I don’t know whether it’s early Parkinson’s combined with Alzheimer’s, or something else,” Krichevsky said.

Krichevsky had been living with his elderly mother and caring for her since 2016. Last year, she was hospitalized with a complex fracture. After she was discharged, she was unable to walk, and Krichevsky would help her to sit up and do breathing exercises in order to prevent pulmonary edema and bedsores. After Krichevsky was arrested, the woman was sent to a care home. She died of a pulmonary edema a month later.

“They apparently left her lying in bed at the care home. When a person lies in a horizontal position for a long time, they develop a pulmonary edema. That’s what my mother died of,” he said in court.

While in pretrial detention, Krichevsky formally lost his Group I disability status, which he had prior to his arrest, and so he was unable to obtain a medical examination.

According to Krichevsky, a neurologist at the Izhevsk detention center promised to send him to a hospital, but instead Krichevsky was transferred to another pretrial detention center. “I thought they were taking me to a hospital, but they took me first to Perm and then to Yekaterinburg. They basically lied to me when they said they were taking me to a hospital,” he said on the stand.

Krichevskny never did get any medical attention: “We’ll only help you if you’re dying, [they said.] Otherwise, just sit there and suffer.”

“Radical views and hostility toward the current government”: trial and pleadings

Krichevsky’s trial was postponed five times in a row: it took a long time to bring him in his wheelchair, first to Detention Center No. 1 in Yekaterinburg, and then to the court. He was brought to the hearings late, and had to spend four to five hours in the police van, where, according to Krichevsky, the temperature was the same as outside.

At the beginning of the trial, Krichevsky filed a motion requesting that he be assigned an inpatient forensic examination and treatment. He said that he had never been examined by a neurologist at the Yekaterinburg detention center, only by a GP. He was taken for examination to the local medical unit, which was not equipped for people with disabilities: there was a “big step” in front of the toilet and sink which he could not get over. As a result, the doctors only checked his reflexes and sent him back.

In their medical report, the doctors at the detention center stated that Krichevsky had no disability and that his overall health was satisfactory, meaning that he was able to take part in the court hearings.

Before the proceedings, Krichevsky again requested to be sent for treatment, “in accordance with the neurologist’s recommendation” in Izhevsk, but Judge Raitsky denied the request, seeing no need for it. Prosecutor Artem Terentyev also asked that the request be denied, as it went “beyond the scope of the criminal case under consideration.”

During the trial, the prosecutor asked that Krichevsky be imprisoned for six years in a medium-security penal colony. The prosecutor stressed that the defendant had “radical views” and was “hostile toward the current government of the Russian Federation and its officials,” and that he had written the offending comment at a time when the mobilization had not yet been completed. The prosecutor considered these to be aggravating circumstances.

The prosecutor cited Krichevsky’s “poor health” as a mitigating circumstance.

You can support Alexander by writing him a letter.

Address:
Russian Federation 620019 FKU SIZO-1, GUFSIN of Russia for the Sverdlovsk Region • Sverdlovsk Region, Yekaterinburg, Repin Street, 4 • Alexander Anatolyevich Krichevsky, born 1967

You can also send letters through the online service Zonatelecom.

Source: Vasily Besspalyi, “Wheelchair user from Izhevsk sentenced to six years in prison for comment about Putin; his mother, sent to nursing home after his arrest, dies a month later,” Mediazona, 22 December 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader. Since letters to Russian prisoners are vetted by prison censors, they must be written in Russian or translated into Russian, something that can done more or less handily using an online machine translator like Google Translate. Please write to me if you need help or advice. ||||| TRR

Olga Menshikh: “A Society Sick with Fear Cannot Be Happy”

**Olga Menshikh. Photo: Alexandra Astakhova/Mediazona**

A panel of three Moscow City Court judges, chaired by Irina Vasina, upheld the verdict in the criminal case against anesthesia nurse Olga Menshikh on charges of disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army: eight years in prison for two posts on the Russian social media network VKontakte, per Article 207.3.2.e of the Criminal Code. This is the longest sentence on these charges handed down to a woman. The following is an abridged version of Menshikh’s statement at today’s court hearing.

You and I understand everything quite well: we are all adults here. You shall say that this is not a frame-up, that it’s the norm. Nevertheless, we understand that there is a more serious organisation* which has ordered this [verdict], and they do things as they see fit regardless of these frame-ups.

Here, for example, is a quotation from my case file: “Olga Sergeyevna Menshikh causes her fellow citizens to feel anxious, afraid and worried, to feel undefended by the state’. I cause that!? I am an absolute loner with a mum who is eighty-six years old, and I have no other interests in life. What can I say? These words in no way apply to me. I completely deny them and consider them slander.

But these words perfectly describe the well-known organisation, known as the FSB, which I have just outlined for you. […] Back in the day, serious conclusions were not drawn about the architecture of the seventy-year utopia, which murdered millions of its own citizens and citizens of other countries and collapsed during an attempt to repair it, but then suddenly rose up and went at it again. Crush what was not crushed earlier! ‘Crush them!’ is the watchword of the day.

Who should be crushed, I want to ask you, your honours? The peasants, whom you destroyed long ago? The hegemon [i.e., the proletariat], whom you long ago turned into a drunkard? Do you want to crush the intelligentsia? Do you want to crush business? How do you plan to live? What have I been observing in Detention Centre No. 6 right now? I just sat for four hours with the nicest businesswoman. You have been clamping down on businesspeople of all stripes.

I have seen all kinds of people here. Lawyers and doctors serving long sentences, mothers with many children, with three or four children, incarcerated here without verdicts. And just now I came in from the corridor, where a disabled woman in a wheelchair was being sent off to a penal colony. Pensioners and young people are held here on completely trumped-up charges. Do you want to crush them, to trample on their lives so as to make others afraid? Is that what you want to do? You want to crush them so that everyone is afraid because you were ordered to do it? Have them be afraid, have them sit in prison.

Well, this is what I want to tell you calmly. A society sick with fear cannot create, cannot be happy, cannot live, cannot love to the fullest, cannot reproduce. You consider it quite necessary for us to reproduce. But [society] cannot reproduce amid this fear. A wild goose never laid a tame egg. This fig tree will die out, you shall kill it off.

This entire fear machine has only one aim: destroying all of us. So many people, so many civilised people were destroyed, that I cannot list their names. I will only quote a great novel. Having worked in the medical field myself, as someone who took patients quite seriously, I will quote the great novel Doctor Zhivago, about Doctor Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago. By the way, he dies before he reaches the age of forty.

Here is what the great diagnostician Yuri Zhivago says: “Microscopic forms of cardiac hemorrhages have become very frequent in recent years. […] It’s a typical modern disease. I think its causes are of a moral order. The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.”**

Yuri Andreyevich uttered these words exactly a hundred years ago. And so, concerning this organisation, which we all know quite well: a dead man coming back to life cannot make anyone happy. Even when he was alive, he brought happiness to no one. He turned a lot of folk into dead people, and now he is raising another generation suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which is quite hard to treat.

What can I say? I am sorry. I feel sorry for you, I feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for the people in this detention centre. I feel sorry for the women, for the children. Dear honourable judges and prosecutors, we are all in the same boat. I rest my case.

* In the first part of her statement, Menshikh talks about how she believes the FSB was behind her criminal case from the beginning — Mediazona.

** Translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari — TRR.

Source: “‘A society sick with fear cannot be happy’: a statement by nurse Olga Menshikh, sentenced to eight years in prison for two social media posts about the war,” Mediazona, 5 April 2025. Translated by the Russian Reader, who urges you to donate money to Mediazona to support their vital mission as they stand on the brink of financial collapse, and to support my own work here by reposting and sharing these dispatches with friends and comrades.

A court in Moscow on Thursday sentenced a 59-year-old nurse to eight years in prison for social media posts opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Olga Menshikh was accused of spreading “fake” information about the military with two VKontakte posts that condemned Russian strikes on Vinnytsia, Ukraine, that killed 28 people in July 2022 and Russian troops’ mass atrocities against civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

Menshikh denied her guilt, with Mediazona reporting she had 15 followers and that her account may have been breached.

Moscow’s Dorogimolovsky District Court found Menshikh guilty of spreading “fake news” about the Russian military’s actions abroad and handed her an eight-year sentence in a prison colony.

Menshikh was an anesthetic nurse at the Pirogov National and Medical Surgical Center, where Mediazona said she had treated Russian soldiers wounded in Ukraine.

The outlet said Menshikh had faced several administrative arrests and fines for anti-war social media posts and her support for the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Russia has cracked down on anti-war protests, the independent press and social media platforms since launching what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine in 2022.

Source: “Moscow Nurse Jailed 8 Years for Anti-War Posts,” Moscow Times, 3 October 2024

Alexander Skobov: “We Are Witnessing a Disgusting Attempt at a Purely Imperialist Collusion Between Two Predators”

Today, the 1st Western District Military Court sentenced 67-year-old dissident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison and fined him 300,000 rubles (just over $3,500). Skobov, who first faced criminal prosecution in the USSR, was convicted under charges of “participation in the activities of a terrorist community” (for his involvement with the Free Russia Forum, a Russian opposition conference abroad) and “justification of terrorism” (for his social media posts and articles). Mediazona publishes Skobov’s closing statement from today’s trial—a passionate speech in which he continues to openly support Ukraine, defies persecution and denounces judges as accomplices of Putin’s war crimes.

I will not dwell on the fact that the investigation has branded the organisation I have the honour of belonging to, the Free Russia Forum, as a terrorist community. There has been no official ruling from any government body recognising the Free Russia Forum as such. For now, it is merely an “undesirable organization.”

But I have little interest in all this petty mumbling. I prefer to speak about what truly matters. What matters here is the platform of the Free Russia Forum, a platform I was directly involved in shaping, and one that distinguishes the Free Russia Forum from most other opposition organisations.

Let me remind you that this platform is built on three principles. First: we stand for the unconditional return to Ukraine of all its internationally recognised territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea. Yes, Крим це Україна. [Crimea is (part of) Ukraine — TRR.]

Second. We support all those who are fighting to achieve these goals—including citizens of the Russian Federation who have voluntarily joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

And third. We recognise any form of war against Putin’s tyranny inside Russia, including armed resistance. Of course, we are deeply disgusted by the methods of ISIS, when innocent people are targeted, as was the case in Crocus City.

But are the Kremlin’s war propagandists a legitimate target? The Free Russia Forum has not formally debated this issue or adopted any resolutions on it, so what I say next reflects my personal position alone.

I believe that propagandists such as TV host Vladimir Solovyov deserve the same fate as Hitler’s chief propagandist Julius Streicher, who was hanged by the Nuremberg Tribunal. Until these outcasts of the human race are brought before a new Nuremberg Tribunal—and as long as this war continues—they remain legitimate military targets.

For me, the comparison between Putin’s and Hitler’s propagandists is not mere rhetoric. Much of my public writings has been devoted to proving the inherently Nazi nature of Putin’s regime—a regime with which peaceful coexistence is fundamentally impossible.

I appeal now, as I have before, first and foremost to Europe, which should remember the origins of the current European system. Since 1945, Europe has been building a world in which predators no longer prevailed, a world based on the principles of law, justice, freedom, and humanity. Europe had achieved much on this path and seemed to have rid itself of massacres and territorial redistributions forever.

Europe once believed that this safe and prosperous world was securely protected by a great powerful ally across the ocean. Today, this world is being torn to splinters by two scoundrels on both sides: the Kremlin and Washington. People with pro-fascist values have come to power in the United States.

We are witnessing a disgusting attempt at a purely imperialist collusion between two predators. An even more despicable collusion than the Munich Betrayal of 1938. If Putin’s annexations are legalised, it will spell disaster for civilization. Europe, you have been betrayed. Wake up and go fight for your world!

Death to the Russian fascist invaders! Death to Putin, the new Hitler, murderer and scoundrel! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!

I usually end my speeches with these words. But today I will be further asked whether I plead guilty.

Well, I am the accuser here.

I accuse Putin’s corpse-stinking clique of planning, unleashing, and waging an aggressive war. Of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Of orchestrating political terror in Russia. Of corrupting my people.

And now, I ask the servants of Putin’s regime present here, mere cogs in the repressive machine: do you find yourselves guilty of complicity in Putin’s crimes? Do you repent?

And with that, I’ve said all I needed to say.

Source: “‘I am the accuser here—I accuse Putin’s corpse‑stinking clique’: Closing statement of dissident Alexander Skobov, sentenced to 16 years in prison,” Mediazona, 21 March 2025

A Russian military court sentenced Soviet-era dissident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison on charges of justifying terrorism and being a member of a terrorist organization, the exiled news outlet Mediazona reported Friday.

Skobov, 67, was arrested in April on allegations that he justified an attack on the Russian-built Crimea Bridge in an online post and was a member of the Lithuania-based liberal opposition platform Free Russia Forum, which Russian authorities have outlawed as “undesirable.”

A military court in St. Petersburg convicted Skobov on both charges and sentenced him to serve his time in a maximum-security prison.

Prosecutors had requested an 18-year sentence for Skobov, whose health had deteriorated significantly during pre-trial detention.news

In a defiant last statement in court, Skobov condemned both Russian and U.S. leaders as “predators” engaged in an “imperialist conspiracy” in Ukraine.

“Death to the Russian fascist invaders! Death to Putin, the new Hitler, the murderer and scoundrel! Glory to Ukraine!” Mediazona quoted Skobov as saying.

“I’m the one blaming you here. I accuse Putin’s ruling clique, which stinks of corpses, of preparing, unleashing and waging an aggressive war,” Skobov added.

Russia’s Justice Ministry designated Skobov as a “foreign agent” in March 2024. He is among the few outspoken critics of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to remain inside the country despite the risk of facing criminal charges under wartime censorship laws.

A dissident since the late 1970s, Skobov was convicted twice and subjected to punitive psychiatric treatment for “anti-Soviet propaganda.”

Source: “Military Court Jails Soviet-Era Dissident Skobov 16 Years for ‘Justifying Terrorism,’” Moscow Times, 21 March 2025

Defenders of the Fatherland Day

Source: Russian Foreign Ministry (Facebook), 23 February 2025

Up to nearly a half of Russian casualties in the war against Ukraine could be men who had few or tenuous links to Russia, or were living on the margins of society, according to new research by the BBC. Their deaths are largely ‘unseen’ by ordinary Russians.

Alongside the independent media outlet Mediazona, and with the help of a network of volunteers, BBC Russian uses open source data to chart the names of Russian soldiers killed in the war. To date, we have confirmed the names of more than 95,000 of them – implying a true death toll of up to 235,000.

This figure doesn’t include those who were killed serving in the militia of the self-proclaimed Donbass republics which we estimate to be between 21,000 and 23,500 fighters.

BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022.

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Ruslan Siddiqi: “You Could Call Me a Partisan”

A Russian and Italian citizen, an electrician from [the Russian city of] Ryazan, an industrial tourist, a bike traveller, an anarchist and a partisan — all this can be said about 36-year-old Ruslan Siddiqi. In the summer of 2023, he dispatched four drones with explosives to attack the Diaghilev military airfield near Ryazan, and in the autumn, he decided to act “from the ground” — damaging railway lines with two bombs and derailing 19 freight train wagons. Siddiqi is currently awaiting trial in a Moscow pretrial detention centre, with the prospect of a life sentence hanging over him. In these letters to Mediazona, he explained why he decided to “take up explosives”, how a fox spoiled his first sabotage, and how torture by field telephones (known as “tapiki” in slang) differs from torture by tasers. (The security forces used both against him.)

The letters were published by Mediazona in Russian, and translated by Giuliano Vivaldi. Please copy and repost.

Attacking a military airfield: “I took four drones with explosives to the field on a bicycle”

The hum of the Tupolev Tu-22 and Tu-95 aircraft outside my window coincided with the strikes on Ukraine, and this determined my choice of target: Diaghilev military airfield, just ten kilometres from home. I lived with my 80-year-old grandmother and understood how hard it was for the elderly and sick without heat and light in winter. As I filled a tub with hot water, I thought about those deprived of basic amenities a thousand kilometres away, because of someone’s geopolitical ambitions. Yet at the same time they talk about “fraternal nations” and say that “Russia is not at war with civilians”.

*Ruslan Siddiqi in court. Photo: Solidarity Zone*

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