Turning Her Back on Propaganda What does daily life consist of in a prison camp? It consists of work, of course, work which is dull and exhausting. It consists of sleep, which is fitful, as sometimes there are inspections every two hours. And it consists of spending time with people whom you didn’t choose to spend time with. The wardens make sure to burden convicts so that they have nothing that is theirs alone, so that they have no time to think about anything, so that they are entirely subordinate to the powers that be. The goal of prison camp “re-education” is the same: breaking the will of the prisoners, turning them into obedient robots who obey all the orders of their superiors.
This is especially true for political prisoners—people who think independently and have their own principles. The overarching mission of the wardens is to attain voluntary submission, joyful and proactive submission, from political prisoners. But the wardens rarely succeed in this mission.
They have utterly failed with Valeria Zotova, a political prisoner at Kostroma Penal Colony No. 3. The wardens have insistently offered her a path to redemption, that is, cooperating with the authorities and taking part in “civic life.” Zotova has turned it down.
Recently, the prison camp’s club showed a movie, a Russian propaganda film titled Callsign: Passenger. Here is what Wikipedia says about the movie: “The movie is set in 2015. The movie’s main character is Nikolai Ryabinin, a trendy Moscow writer and carefree party animal. His brother volunteered for the war in Donbass and has gone missing. Nikolai goes looking for his brother and joins a separatist unit, the Aurora Battalion, in which his brother previously served. There, he gets the ironic nickname “Passenger” and under the leadership of the commander (callsign: Trigger) reevaluates his own life and comes to support the separatists.”
It’s an unimaginative piece of propaganda based on Alexander Prokhanov’s novel The Murder of Cities. It’s cheap trash, of course, like the writer himself, but the convicts are obliged to drink this cinematic concoction down to the dregs. All of them are herded into the club. Zotova refuses to go. Ultimately, it’s her right to watch the movie or not. But what do rights matter when it comes to Russian patriotism! Zotova is forcibly escorted into the auditorium. Watch our high art: look what talented filmmakers made it, what actors starred in it! But Lera Zotova turns her back on the screen and looks the other way.
Turning one’s back on propaganda is simple—simple but dangerous. The pressure on Valeria continues unabated. The harassment has been endless. The wardens summoned a friend of Zotova’s and stipulated to either: “Either freedom or Zotova—you choose.” They have been trying to create a vacuum around the political prisoner, depriving her of contact with those who are close to her in any way. The young woman is twenty-one years old, but she has been bullied like a hardened criminal. Because, as prison authorities envision it, she should be like everyone else: obedient, involved in the prison camp’s civic life, acting in plays, fulfilling the production quotas, and not smarting off to her superiors.
Convicted Russian anti-war activist Andrei Trofimov. Photo: Mr. Trofimov’s Vkontakte page, via Mediazona
In 2023, Andrey Trofimov, an anti-war activist from Tver, was sentenced to ten years in a maximum security penal colony on several charges [to wit, disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army, calling for “extremism,” and attempting to join the Free Russia Legion]. In his closing statement at trial, he called Vladimir Putin a “dickhead” [khuilo] and “heartily endorsed” Ukraine’s attacks on the Crimean Bridge and the Kremlin. This statement was the grounds for the second criminal case against Trofimov, this time on charges of “condoning terrorism” and “defaming the army.”
Today [6 May 2025], Judge Vadim Krasnov of the Second Western District Military Court lengthened Trofimov’s sentence to thirteen years. Prosecutor Andrei Lopata had petitioned the judge to impose a longer sentence of fifteen years.
Before the verdict in his first trial was read out, Trofimov had petitioned the court to impose the maximum penalty. Now he has suggested that he be charged with the more serious offense of high treason, claiming that he has been involved in the information war on the Ukrainian side.
Below, Mediazona has published a slightly abridged version of Trofimov’s statement during oral arguments at the [second] trial.
* * * * *
Your honor, the factual circumstances of my actions, which the investigation has categorized as crimes, are correctly stated in the indictment and have been fully investigated during the court hearing.
In my statement I would like to dwell on the reasons for these actions, on my goals, to review in detail, charge by charge, my response to the allegations—that is, to explain my motives for not pleading guilty. And, in my conclusion, I would like to petition the court as to what to do with me next.
I was living quietly at the dacha with my cats and was a bother to no one. My life changed drastically on 24 February 2022. The reason for both the first criminal case and the current criminal case [against me] was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I will further explain why I regarded this event in this way.
I am in prison for what I have said, after all. I took no action in either the first case or the second. But this has been my way of being involved in the events, because it was physically impossible for me to leave the country, and I had no desire to stay silent in this situation. I mean, it is my life.
Why have I done this? I must respond to your remarks yesterday to the effect that my statements, including in court, could harm my own interests. Your honor, I have no interest in a shorter sentence. I am already imprisoned.
What is the purpose of what I am doing? Writ large, it is a matter of self-preservation. It is just that I understand the instinct of self-preservation not as the preservation of the body per se, of its physical health, because I am not my body alone. I want to preserve my conscience in this difficult situation, my ability to tell black from white, and lies from truth, and, quite importantly, my ability to say out loud what I believe to be true.
This thing of mine did not start in 2022. I have always tried to live this way. It is just that my desire to preserve this ability in such situations—meaning, the ability to tell the truth, to maintain my conscience— is what causes such actions.
What actions have we observed? We have witnessed concrete evidence of crimes with which I have not been charged, evidence of the violation of Article 278 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code—that is, the forcible seizure or the forcible retention of power. I am referring to Vladimir Putin, who has held the highest official post in the Russian Federation for exactly a quarter of a century. During this entire time, the Constitution of the Russian Federation has contained the principle of succession of power, set out in the guise of the two-term rule [for Russian presidents]. We have witnessed a direct violation of this rule—that is, the forcible retention of power.
In what has occurred since 24 February, we see concrete evidence of a violation of Criminal Code Article 353—that is, the planning, preparation, unleashing, and waging of a war of aggression.
What have I done in this situation? Publicly, in the mode of a solo picket (just a protracteed one), I have demonstrated the Russian state’s insanity. Look, the prosecution is asking for fifteen years in total—the sentence given for murder, but even for murder, sentences are often shorter. And yet my deeds harmed no one nor caused any damage.
I am not just talking about the period covered by these criminal cases. I have never laid a finger on anyone, never stolen a penny, in my entire life. Nevertheless, [the prosecutor wants to send me down for] fifteen years. I believe that this is a demonstration of the state’s insanity. The state happily displays this quality using me as an example.
What have I done in response? I have shown fortitude. This is vital, because I hope that what I have been doing is seen by Ukrainians. Look at this: they arrested him. He was convicted and given a dozen years of maximum security. Judge the effect in terms of the second case. Did you do a good job of convincing me [of the error of my ways]? That is, have I stopped doing what I was doing? Has my voice become less audible? No, it has not.
We have witnessed the same thing on the military front. For four years running, the Russian state has been spilling blood in a neighboring country. Ukraine has not surrendered and will not surrender.
Among the things that I have not exactly been charged with, but which have been repeated in the indictments and in the evidence presented at trial is my insulting Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin by using the foul word “dickhead.” What have I done? It is called desacralization.
Because the sacredness of supreme power is one of the foundations of the Golden Horde method of governance. When I publicly, repeatedly, and daily, at the first trial, at the second trial, in the pretrial detention center, perform this trick, I am desacralizing Vladimir Putin. This is important, because this regime will end all the same, and I very much want to hasten its end. I hate this man. And what the prosecution says about the “motive of political hatred” is the sacred truth. I can confirm that.
The audience I am addressing by these actions is not in Russia, because Russian society is dead and it is useless to try and talk to it. Ukraine is my audience.
As for the charges against me, I do not plead guilty to either count of violating Criminal Code Article 205.2. At issue is one and the same text, simply posted on the internet and spoken aloud in the pretrial detention center. Because I do not consider the incidents which I chose to include in my closing statement at trial to be “terrorist acts.” I chose them on purpose.
What is at issue are the two attacks on the Crimean Bridge. The Crimean Bridge is a vital transport artery which supplies the Russian federal armed forces in Crimea. An attack on a military installation is an instance of armed hostilities. The attack was carried out by the armed forces of Ukraine.
Why was it categorized as a “terrorist attack”? I know perfectly well why. This was done in order, first, to use it in Russian propaganda to dehumanize the enemy. In other words, the Russian Federation is at war not with the armed forces of Ukraine, which are stipulated under Ukrainian law and are doing their constitutional duty, but with terrorist gangs of “Banderites” and “Ukronazis.” To support this agenda, decisions are made to launch criminal proceedings on charges of “terrorism” over instances of armed conflict.
As for the second incident I mentioned, the attack on the Kremlin on 3 May 2023, what do we know? The communique from the Investigative Committee, which the prosecutor quoted yesterday, states outright that the attack was carried out against the residence of the President of the Russian Federation, who is the commander-in-chief of the Russian federal armed forces. Moreover, the Ukrainians also hit the building of the Senate, which is in the section of the Kremlin closed to tourists and where one of Putin’s offices is actually located. Excuse me, but this was not a terrorist attack. It was a Ukrainian combat operation, and a failed one at that.
I must say loudly and out loud that I do not condone or support terrorism, and that I have never condoned terrorism, nor do I intend to condone terrorism. I have a categorically negative attitude to the ideology and practice of terrorism.
Let us move on to [the charges under] Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code. This article is brand-new: it was adopted after the start of what we call the “special operation.”
This is a pure example of persecution for telling the truth. Because a situation has arisen where it has been necessary to shut the mouths of the war’s opponents, but it is impossible to charge them with violating, say, my beloved Criminal Code Article 207.3. How can you charge a person with “disseminating fake news” if they simply voice their attitude to current events? This is how Article 280.3 and the notion of “defamation” emerged, which is quite poorly conceptualized legally.
I have been told that my phrase “Ukraine is a victim of aggression on the part of the country of Russia” defames the Russian federal armed forces. What do we have? We have the UN General Assembly’s 2014 resolution saying that Russia “annexed” Ukraine. Those are not my words. This is a General Assembly resolution: there is no veto power there [as there is on the UN Security Council], so it was passed by a decent majority [of member states]. This is the position of international law.
Similarly, we have a March 2022 UN General Assembly resolution, in which the events of February 24 are labeled an “aggression.” And we have a UN General Assembly resolution on Russia’s incorporation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson which labels these actions “annexation.”
I should note that the statements of, say, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Masha Zakharova are not a source of international law. Statements by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov are not a source of international law. UN General Assembly resolutions are, on the contrary, a source of international law, and so my assessments are based on international legal documents.
But my phrase about “Putin’s scumbags” is also part of the “defamation” charge against me, of course. First, from your viewpoint, “Putin’s” cannot be defamatory, because as you see it, Putin is good. As for the second word [in the phrase], yes, this is my personal opinion, and it does not apply solely to Russian servicemen who carry out unlawful orders. Yes, there are also people in the Russian armed forces who do not carry out unlawful orders, but they are not the only ones fighting there.
Excuse me for characterizing in this way people who murder the soldiers of a neighboring country for money. This is my personal judgment, and it is based on [their] actions.
I will summarize this part of my statement. The Russian federal constitution contains Article 29, [which guarantees] the right to free speech, including the right to gather and disseminate information. This is what I have actually been doing. That is, I have not overstepped Article 29 of the Constitution by a single millimeter. But at the same time I certainly have violated these two current articles of the Criminal Code.
How can this be the case? It can be the cacse because the articles under which I have been charged are unconstitutional. If Russia had a real Constitutional Court, these articles would have ceased to exist long ago.
I cannot fail to mention my report to Prosecutor Zhuk, which was not part of the charges against me, but nevertheless we heard witnesses talk about it yesterday. It does not contain the text of [my] closing statement [at the first trial]. It makes no mention of terrorism or any violent acts at all. I did not say a word about the armed forces either.
The point is that this second case is the result of my statement to the prosecutor’s commission. Because the case file contains two resolutions by FSB investigator Lieutenant Colonel Sergey Vyacheslavovich Yerofeev to dismiss the case—that is, by the investigator in my [first] case, with whom I have a very good level of mutual understanding and who understands exactly what I have been doing and what I have been trying to achieve. He tried to dismiss this case twice.
In the final part of my statement, I turn to the correct characterization of my actions. I am involved in the war on the Ukrainian side. It just that this involvement takes place without weapons, because war is such an extraordinarily multidimensional event. Apart from the fighting in the steppes of Donbas, in the Black Sea, and in the skies above Ukraine, it is fiercely fought in the information space by state entities, by Russian bodies. On the Ukrainian side, for example, interesting entities are also involved.
I am an information warrior. In what sense? On 9 October 2022, I wrote and sent an email to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky asking him to grant me Ukrainian citizenship. I am entitled to it because of my ancestry. All my grandparents hailed from Ukraine. Ukrainian law says that I have the right to [Ukrainian] citizenship.
I was able to enter a screenshot from Kasparov.ru into the record and have it examined in court. What does it confirm? The fact that, apart from publishing my closing statement at trial, Kasparov.ru has published me on a regular basis. What does this confirm? That what I am being tried for now was, in fact, just an instance of my work, which I have not ceased.
I will also mention, of course, Novaya Gazeta, whose website also published my letters. And my latest achievement in this wise is that I have been officially designated a political prisoner, because that is what I call myself at the pretrial detention center, and that is how I sign my petitions to this honorable court. But it was still a kind of self-designation as it were.
On 14 April of this year, the Council on Political Prisoners of the Memorial International Human Rights Defense Center published a decision[designating me a political prisoner]. As part of my work, I have used the criminal cases [against me], the first and the second case, as publicity opportunities.
The information war is a real thing. I am involved in it, and I am trying to prove this now. Informationally, I support Ukraine and the armed forces of Ukraine. In fact, I have defected to the enemy side in an armed conflict involving the Russian Federation. This is the essence of the crime defined in Article 275 of the Russian Federal Criminal Code—high treason.
I ask the court to send my criminal case back to the prosecutor, as the factual circumstances indicate that there are grounds for charging me with a more serious crime. Try me for treason: I betrayed your deranged state.
* * * * *
Address for letters:
Trofimov Andrei Nikolayevich (born 1966) 141 ul. Bagzhanova, FKU SIZO-1 UFSIN po Tverskoi oblasti Tver, Tver Oblast 127081 Russian Federation
You can send letters to Mr. Trofimov and other Russian political prisoners via ZT, F-Pismo, and PrisonMail.online. (The last of these services accepts payments made with non-Russian bank cards.)
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.
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.
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.)
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”.
The number of Russians who find themselves behind bars for opposing the authorities who launched the war with Ukraine grows by the day. There are hundreds of political prisoners in the country. We try to remind our readers about these people every chance we get. Today, Mediazona’s David Frenkel tells the story of Alexander Skobov, 67, a historian from St Petersburg, a defendant in the last criminal case against ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’ in Soviet history, a convinced Marxist, and a veteran of the dissident movement, who after decades has found himself on a very familiar path: searches, arrest, psychiatric ward, jail.
Alexander Skobov is one of the most experienced political prisoners in Russia. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was twice sent to a psychiatric hospital for compulsory treatment: the first time as an editor of samizdat, the second time for slogans in favour of political prisoners, which Skobov wrote on the walls of Leningrad houses.
Almost half a century later, in April 2024, the authorities came after him again. Skobov was accused of ‘justifying terrorism’ because of his post about the explosion on the Crimean Bridge and sent to a pre-trial detention centre. In protest, he refused to take his glasses and medication with him. Later, an article on participation in a ‘terrorist community’ was added to the charge, and Skobov was transferred from St Petersburg to Syktyvkar.
“We were left alone for a long time. The reasoning being: we’ll die out on our own. Or we’ll leave and live out the rest of our lives off the once acquired (quite deservedly) political and moral capital. The blow came to other people, most of them much younger,” he wrote from the pre-trial detention centre.
Skobov maintains an active correspondence in pre-trial detention. He discusses philosophical and political topics, his letters are even published in historical journals. Write to Alexander, argue with him, disagree with him, I’m sure it would be valuable to him. The only thing is that his wife asks that the letters to him be written in 18-point Sans Serif font. Skobov can’t even see his own texts well: he first drafts them on the back of used sheets of paper and then blindly transfers the texts to the reply form.
Address:
167028, г. Сыктывкар, поселок Верхний Чов, д. 99 , ФКУ СИЗО-1 УФСИН России по Республике Коми. Скобову Александру Валерьевичу 1957 года рождения
Please write letters in Russian, otherwise the prison censors won’t let them through. You can send letters online via a special services called PrisonMail.
You can also write in English, using the websites Letters Across Borders and Lifeline, two projects by OVD Info, a media outlet and human rights defense group.
Lawyer Dmitry Talantov has been sentenced to seven years in a penal colony on charges of disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army and inciting hatred in connection with several social media posts about the war. Talantov had been on the defense team of journalist Ivan Safronov, who was sentenced to twenty-two years in a penal colony for high treason. Talantov had also served for many years as the head of the Udmurtia bar association, so it is likely that both the judge who sentenced Talantov and the prosecutor who petitioned the judge to sentence the respected 64-year-old defense lawyer to twelve years in prison knew him personally.
Talantov delivered a memorable closing statement today in court.
Dmitry Talantov, sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for antiwar social media posts:
Brodsky once said that “prison is a lack of space counterbalanced by a surplus of time.” I didn’t completely understand this phrase. I didn’t get it. I’m certain that none of you totally understands it, because it is the surplus of time which is frightening about this situation, not the lack of space. It is the time during which you suffer, and the time that tries to kill you. Every minute tries to kill you, and every minute in there [in prison] is equal to an hour.
[…]
People often ask for forgiveness during their closing statement. I also want to ask for it. I’m saying this to my wife. Forgive me, Olga. I love you. If this is overdoing it emotionally, then I’ll put it this way. Olya, if you’re ever sent to prison for twelve years for some reason, I’ll wait for you to get out. Take it easy.
Sasha Skochilenko, the Petersburg artist and musician sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for posting antiwar price tags in a supermarket and released as part of a prisoner swap in August 2024:
Alexei Gorinov, the Moscow municipal district council member who was initially sentenced to seven years in prison for “disseminating fake news” during an argument about whether it was appropriate to hold celebrations for children during a war, and who is now on trial a second time for allegedly “condoning terrorism” in conversations with cellmates:
I was also a municipal council member during the August 1991 coup. I stood with other defenders outside the Russian Supreme Soviet, the so-called White House. We were defending our freedom, our right to live freely and, thus, to speak freely, voice our thoughts, gather information, and share it. If they had told me then that thirty years later I would be tried by a criminal court for my words, for my opinion, I wouldn’t have believed them.
Nadezhda Buyanova, a pediatrician, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for “disseminating fake news,” after she was denounced by the widow of an army officer killed in Ukraine: the doctor had allegedly said to the woman’s seven-year-old son that his father had been a “legitimate target”:
If there used to were doctors and patients, nowadays there are providers and clients. That’s what we were told at the planning meetings: “Humiliate yourself. And us.” We medics can be slandered, we can be insulted, we can be called every name in the book. We can’t defend ourselves, our explanations are not heard by our superiors, and conflicts are not resolved.
There was no interrogation and the child had nothing to say. “At the end of the appointment, he walked out of the office.” You cannot believe such a tale. You cannot lie like that: it’s a disgrace. How can you accuse a person without evidence, on the basis of a false accusation? Where is the logic? Where is the justice? Earlier, in ancient times, there were wise men. They would have said: “Well, what do you expect from a person without proof?”
Roman Ivanov, a journalist for RusNews, was sentenced to seven years in prison for three social media posts. During his closing statement in court, he knelt down to apologize to Ukrainians:
What can we do in this situation? I honestly don’t even know anymore. But I want to ask for forgiveness from all the citizens of Ukraine, to whom our country has brought grief, whom our country has robbed of their relatives, their loved ones, and their friends, who will never come back.
And [I ask for forgiveness] not for the whole country, but for me personally, for Roman Viktorovich Ivanov, a citizen of the Russian Federation. I would like to get down on my knees before the relatives of the people who were murdered in Bucha, although I don’t know who murdered them. But they are the consequences of what our country has become.
The politician Alexei Navalny was repeatedly tried on trumped-up charges before he was murdered in a penal colony on 16 February 2024. Perhaps it was Navalny, during his endless trials, who revived the closing statement in court as a literary genre. Here is an excerpt from his speech at his trial for “extremism” in July 2023:
Former Moscow politician Alexei Gorinov, the first known Russian to be imprisoned for denouncing the invasion of Ukraine, was sentenced to three more years on Friday on charges of “justifying terrorism” that he says he was framed for.
Ahead of his sentencing, he read the following statement to the court and the press:
Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov, sits in a cage of the courtroom as his second trial for criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine swiftly nears its conclusion in Vladimir, Russia, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. Photo: Dmitry Serebryakov/AP
“All my life I have been an opponent of aggression, violence and war, and devoted myself exclusively to peaceful activities: science, teaching, education, governance and public activities as a deputy, human rights activist, member of election commissions and controller of the electoral process. I never thought that I would live to see such a level of degradation of my country’s political system and its foreign policy, when ordinary citizens who favor peace and are against war, who number in the thousands, would be accused of slandering the Armed Forces and justifying terrorism, and would be put on trial.
“The third year of the war is coming to an end. The third year of casualties and destruction on European territory, of deprivation and suffering of millions of people on a level unprecedented since World War II. We cannot remain silent about this.
“Back in late April, our former defense minister announced the losses of the Ukrainian side in the armed conflict – 500,000 people. Think about this number! And what losses have been suffered by Russia, which, according to official information, is constantly successfully advancing along the entire front? We still do not know. And who will be responsible for this? What is all this for?
“Our authorities and those who support them in their militaristic aspirations wanted this war so much — and now it has come to our land.
“I would like to ask them: has our life become better? Is this how you understand the well-being and security of our country and its population? Or did you not envision these developments in your calculations?
“But for now we have to answer not to those who organized the war, continue to kill, propagandize the war and engage in mercenarism. Rather, we ordinary citizens of Russia, who raise our voices against war and for peace, have to answer, paying with our freedom and, for some, with our lives.
“I belong to the outgoing generation of people whose parents took part in World War II or survived it with all its hardships. The generation that has already passed away entrusted us with preserving peace with all our might as the most precious thing on Earth for all its inhabitants. But we have neglected these principles and devalued our memory of these people and the victims of that war.
“My guilt is that I, as a citizen of my country, allowed this war to happen and failed to stop it. And I ask you to note this in the verdict. But I would like my guilt and responsibility to be shared with me by the organizers, participants and supporters of the war, as well as the persecutors of those who advocate peace.
“I continue to live with the hope that someday it will be so. In the meantime, I ask the people of Ukraine and my fellow citizens affected by the war to forgive me.
“Within the framework of the case in which I was accused and tried for my opinion that we need to seek an end to the war, I have expressed my attitude fully to this abominable human endeavor. I can only say that violence and aggression breed nothing but reciprocal violence. This is the true cause of our troubles, our suffering, our senseless sacrifices, the destruction of civilian and industrial infrastructure and our homes.
“Let us stop this bloody, needless slaughter — neither for us nor the inhabitants of Ukraine. Isn’t it time to leave our neighbors alone and deal with our own snowballing domestic problems? Long ago we proved to the world how brave, resilient and peace-loving we are. So, maybe enough is enough?
“Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy — from a letter to his son (1904): ‘For me, the madness and criminality of war is so clear that I can see nothing in it except for this madness and criminality.’
“I too join and subscribe to these words of our great compatriot.
“You can join too!”
SOTAVision reported that Judge Vladimirov interrupted Gorinov when he started to talk about losses in the war in Ukraine and called a 15-minute break so Gorinov could “think over his speech again.”
Igor Paskar has been sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for two anti-war actions. In June 2022, in the centre of Krasnodar, Igor set fire to a “Z” banner [a symbol of support for the Russian military]. Two days later, he protested at the local office of the Federal Security Service (FSB), by throwing a Molotov cocktail at the stone porch of the building, while his face was painted with the colours of the Ukrainian flag. The FSB and the courts defined this as “vandalism” and an “act of terrorism.”
Igor Paskar
Igor Paskar was born in Nikolaevsky village, a working-class community in the northern part of Volgograd Region. He went to school there. After doing national service on building sites in Samara, he worked as a courier, and for haulage and construction companies.
Paskar had three previous convictions. The first time he went to court, at the age of 22, was for possession of a few grams of cannabis: he was given a five-year suspended sentence. “In the milieu in which I grew up, half of the people I knew – if not more than half – smoked cannabis. It was not considered to be asocial or objectionable. But the motherland has decided that, in contrast to drinking alcohol, that’s serious criminal behaviour,” Igor said. Three years later, Paskar was in court again, and this time was sentenced to two years in prison for the theft of, and possession of, drugs. He points out that, from the moment of his first time in court, the police searched him regularly, and said quite openly that they were looking for weed. Igor’s third time in court was in 2006, when he received a one-and-a-half year suspended sentence for possession of narcotics. “That’s how I came to the attention of our law enforcement agencies. And from then on, I didn’t have a life,” he recalled. Given these circumstances, in 2013 Igor moved to Moscow.
In the capital, Igor continued working in various jobs, and helping his mother, until she died in 2017. This was around the time his social conscience took shape.
“As far back as I remember, even when I was very young, I was always concerned about what was happening in our country. Our motherland, in the guise of the Russian state, always seemed like a stepmother to me, not a real mother. I was never indifferent to the pressure that the state brought to bear on those who dissented or disagreed,” Igor said in court.
In 2020 Igor went to the Belarusian embassy to express solidarity with those who protested after the blatant falsification of the results of the presidential election, in which Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenko gave himself 93% of the votes. “That summer and autumn, in 2020, when Belarus’s tinpot dictator was pushing his people around, I was still hoping that here in Russia we would avoid that kind of thing,” Igor says.
In 2021 Igor participated in a big protest staged after the arrest of Alexei Navalny. He was detained, brought to court and fined 10,000 rubles.
The all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 decided things for Igor once and for all. He decided to undertake a symbolic anti-war action, to support people in Ukraine. On 12 June 2022, the Russia Day national holiday, Igor set fire to a pro-war banner displaying the letter “Z” and the militarist slogan “We don’t abandon our own.” However, the action did not attract the attention Igor had hoped it would.
He decided on a second protest. On 14 June he threw an improvised Molotov cocktail at the stone porch of the FSB offices in Krasnodar. It set fire only to a plastic mat. As Igor later stated in court, his action was entirely symbolic and posed no threat to anyone’s life. For Paskar, the action was an expression of solidarity with people in Ukraine, and a signal to those in Russia who did not support the war that they were not alone. “My action was peaceful, and aimed to show all who opposed this monstrous war that they were not isolated, and to show our Ukrainian neighbours, that we [in Russia] have not all been turned in to zombies by state propaganda,” he said in court.
Igor was arrested a few minutes after throwing the Molotov cocktail at the FSB building. “I stood outside the building and waited for them. I made no attempt to hide or to evade arrest,” Igor recalled in court. The police arrived, asked if it was him who had started the fire, and, when he confirmed that it was, they put him in handcuffs and took him in to the FSB premises.
“There were people in uniform, perhaps six to eight of them,” Igor said. “They snapped a photo of me on a phone: that picture is in the case file, and it shows that I had no injuries. Then they asked me what I wanted, why I did that. I answered that I wanted to make use of Article 51 of the Constitution, that gives you the right not to incriminate yourself. They obviously found that funny, because a split-second later a sack was put over my head. The next few hours were among the very worst of my life.”
This Saturday, 23 November, at 7 p.m., the last presentation about and fundraiser for Ilya Shakursky will take place at Schwarzmarkt in Hamburg (Kleiner Schäferkamp 46). After the new year, a big update is in store for the project, but in the meantime we look forward to seeing the local public and thank everyone who has supported us this year!
Este sábado 23 de noviembre será la última presentación sobre Ilya Shakursky con posibilidad de donaciones en Hamburg im Schwarzmarkt (Kleiner Schäferkamp 46), después del año nuevo el proyecto espera una gran actualización, pero mientras tanto esperamos al público local y ¡gracias a todos los que nos han apoyado este año!
The story of Zakhar Zaripov, dying of cancer in prison while serving time for a social media post
Prison medicine is not known for its diligence. It can do little to help seriously ill people and plays on the side of the officials who run penal colonies and pretrial detention centres. The story of Zakhar Zaripov is a case in point. For a year doctors delayed doing analyses and making a diagnosis, even as he was writing things like this to his wife: “I feel bad, it hurts, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, it’s hard for me to breathe, I’m dying.”
Zaripov is indeed dying: he has stage IV salivary gland cancer. According to the law, the authorities are obliged to release him, but the appeals court hearing on the matter has been postponed for over six months, says Zaripov’s defense lawyer Konstantin Bubon.
Zakhar Zaripov was born and lived in Sovetskaya Gavan, a town in the Khabarovsk Territory. He taught maths at evening schools in penal colonies. He was also fond of science fiction and wrote novels about popadantsy (accidental time travelers). Zaripov also wrote about politics at the LiveJournal account scribble_33. As the teacher himself says, many people had access to the account.
On 2 March 2022, a post was published on scribble_33 suggesting that Ramzan Kadyrov oust Putin and make Chechnya independent. It is not known who wrote it; Zaripov says it wasn’t him. Police investigators, citing indirect testimony by the staff at the penal colony where the teacher worked, decided that it was Zaripov.
The court agreed with the findings of the investigators and sentenced Zaripov to five years in a medium security penal colony. The teacher was arrested when his wife was in the last months of being pregnant with their second child. Zaripov has not seen his youngest daughter yet, as he is imprisoned in Khabarovsk, which is far away and expensive to visit. It is unclear whether he will see her at all.
In September 2023, Zaripov discovered a strange tumour in his mouth. He was able to see a surgeon only two months later. The doctors then began doing analyses and ultrasounds on him, but they failed to diagnose him and kept postponing his treatment. Because of the pain, Zaripov stopped sleeping on his right side, and because the tumor in his mouth has grown so large it hurts when he eats.
In July 2024, Zaripov was diagnosed with stage IV salivary gland cancer. But the final case conference did not meet until September. Prison officials plan to hospitalize Zaripov, but it is known whether he will have time to receive any treatment and whether he will be released home.
Russia’s best troops are now concentrated in another country. Moscow and Putin are completely defenseless. Hold back your troops. Do not send your best men to die in Kiev — send them to take Moscow!
Under current conditions, a limited contingent of a few thousand bayonets would easily take control of government buildings in Russia. You would declare that you have taken power, overthrow a dictator already condemned by the entire world, and stop the war.
This would allow Chechnya to gain independence and avenge all the deaths and humiliation inflicted by the Russian authorities over the past twenty-six years.
This is a perfect historical chance. There may not be another one in your lifetime.
Lenin took Russia with 1,500 men personally devoted to him. You have 40,000 top-notch fighters at your disposal. That’s quite enough.
Since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the country’s repressive apparatus has turned so severe that absolutely anyone can face serious prison time. You can evince complete indifference to events or even support the “special military operation,” but one day it could happen that a family member of yours has been captured by the security forces. Often these family members are minors. They are now being given quite “adult” prison sentences, but they have virtually no chance of being released as part of high-profile prisoner exchanges.
The number of Russians imprisoned for political offenses has been growing, and the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future. We decided to tell the stories of several family members of political prisoners in order to try and answer the simplest questions: why relatives of prisoners often need support themselves, how best to help relatives of political prisoners, what mistakes it is better to avoid making if your relative is detained by law enforcement, and the vital role played by letters to political prisoners. Ivan Astashin, a human rights activist with the project Solidarity Zone and a former political prisoner himself, and two mothers whose sons have been convicted of “terrorism” by the Russian authorities helped us to answer those questions.
Cast of characters:
Anna, Nikita Uvarov’s mother. Nikita Uvarov was a defendant in the high-profile case of the Kansk teens. The three teens charged in the case were detained by law enforcement after posting leaflets on an FSB building and organizing an anarchist “terrorist” group. Uvarov was sentenced to five years in prison.
Tatyana, Yegor Balazeikin’s mother. Yegor Balazeikin, a prep school student, was detained for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the wall of a military enlistment center in the Leningrad Region which failed to ignite. According to investigators, in February 2023, Balazeikin tried to set fire to military enlistment offices in St. Petersburg and the town of Kirovsk by way of protesting against the military mobilization. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Ivan Astashin was a political prisoner in the high-profile 2010s criminal case against the so-called Autonomous Combat Terrorist Organization (ABTO). He spent almost ten years in prison. Nowadays, he does human rights work as part of the project Solidarity Zone, which we featured in a previous article.
Arrest and Verdict
Tatyana and Yegor Balazeikin
Tatyana, Yegor Balazeikin’s mother: The telephone rang at 11:40 p.m. on 28 February. It was an unknown number. A woman’s voice said that our son had been detained whilst attempting to torch a military enlistment office in the town of Kirovsk in the Leningrad Region. At the time [of his arrest], Yegor was in the room which we had rented for him [in St. Petersburg]. He stayed there on school days because it was near the prep school he attended. We live in the Leningrad Region, and it was quite complicated to commute there. When I heard what the woman said, I told my husband what happened and that we should get ready to go. We got ready instantly and went there. What were we feeling at that moment? We probably felt that was happening was not real because Yegor had never broken any rules, not at school or kindergarten, not at his sports club, not outside or in public places. We realized that something out of the ordinary must have happened to move him to do what he did.
We were not allowed to see Yegor when we arrived: he was with the police, the FSB, or the Investigative Committee. I don’t know exactly who was in the room with him, as none of those people introduced themselves to us. We talked with the juvenile justice officer, who took our statements. Yegor at that moment was in a separate room with law enforcement officers, and I was let in there to see him only when another juvenile justice officer had taken his statement, which either his father or I was supposed to sign. Only when Yegor had made his statement was I let into the room.
What was the hardest thing for us during the process? There were a lot of hard things, but the hardest thing was understanding that this was an injustice and that we were powerless, that we had no way to fight back and prove that an injustice was taking place. The verdict was one of the hardest stages. And for me it was not the verdict that was the scariest, but the prosecutor’s oral arguments, when he asked the court to sentence Yegor to six years. That was horrible. It was during the trial, and I had a very hard time coping with my emotions. I started crying, taking sedatives, and drinking water, because my oral arguments were next. I had to put myself together and make my speech. These six years requested by the prosecutor were the most terrible thing.
Nikita and Anna Uvarov
Anna, Nikita Uvarov’s mother: It all began on 6 June 2020. Five teens were detained in Kansk around five o’clock in the evening, and my son Nikita was amongst them. Their telephones were immediately confiscated and they were taken to the Investigative Committee. Among them was the Marxist-leaning grandson of the former mayor of Kansk, Nadezhda Kachan, and a guy who associated himself with antifa and had met the other boys online shortly before their arrests. He was the first to be approached by a police detective and asked to set up a meeting. Those two immediately turned witnesses, while Denis, Bogdan and Nikita were identified as suspects, although only two people had pasted up the leaflets. An FSB detective called me and told me that my son had been detained and that I needed to come to the Investigative Committee. When I arrived there, Nikita and five officers were sitting in an office. There, I learned that Nikita and Denis, who had asked to spend the night at our place, on the night of 5 June, after waiting for me to fall asleep, had pasted a leaflet on the treasury building that read “Their luxury guarantees your poverty!” and next to it, on the FSB building, a leaflet that read “Hands off the anarchists — the state is the main terrorist!” and included four photos of political prisoners.
I was told to sign a form giving consent to a search of our apartment and voluntarily hand over leaflets and other items. At the apartment, Nikita turned the leaflets and the sugar substitute (?) over to them, while a detective went through his notebooks and computer, which was then also confiscated. Then there was another interrogation by a detective from the department for combating extremism and terrorism, in which after examining the contents of the phones he began to ask questions about the Molotov cocktail, and Nikita’s reply that they had just been fooling around didn’t satisfy the detective.
Then there was an interrogation involving investigators and a bunch of FSB guys with a readymade record of the interrogation, which even included the date of the alleged bombing of the FSB, or the Interior Ministry. My son and I refused to sign it, and then they began to write up the arrest. It was horrible, as I realized I could do nothing to help Nikita. I couldn’t get my head around what was happening and what would happen next.
And then there was the arraignment, at which the judge read out terrible character references from the school, while the juvenile justice inspector, who had never been to our apartment and never spoken with our neighbors, nevertheless tried to describe our living conditions. After eleven months, my lawyer Vasin and I managed to get the remand in custody changed, and Nikita was free for nine months. But the lawyer immediately said that the sentence would most likely involve actual prison time, so throughout that whole time it was hard and scary for my son. The verdict was the hardest, because I had hoped for a suspended sentence, even if it was minimal, thinking that due to his age they would take pity on him, because there had been no such instances involving actual prison time, it seems, before Nikita, and these kids had already been punished for their views. The case was an obvious frame-up, and I think the judges saw that too, but they didn’t give the defense much room to make its case, and many of its motions were overruled. Still, I thought to myself that now everything would be over and we would be free at last…. The verdict was meant to make an example of my son, because he hadn’t pleaded guilty or asked for mercy.
Problems and Challenges
Ivan Astashin: Of course, it is better to learn about the problems faced by relatives of political prisoners from them. For my part, as a human rights activist, I can emphasize the fact that after a person is arrested, their relatives often either do not know where to turn, or are afraid to go anywhere for help. This is a big problem, as the initial hours and days are crucial in many respects.
Ivan Astashin
Anna, Nikita Ugarov’s mother: My main difficulties now are emotional fatigue and constant worries about Nikita, his health, and the attitudes of both the prison staff and the people serving time with him. After all, prison is a terrible place, and my son should not be in there. He has a good heart: he is not bitter now, and forgave everyone long ago. We are still coping financially: ordinary, caring people help a little, and I am very grateful to them for this. They write to me and support me, which makes me feel better. Nikita receives a lot of letters, which help him a great deal to hold on and not get discouraged. Thank God, I have not encountered bullying or stigmatization from others. No one cares at all here in Kansk. I get mostly sympathy and understanding from neighbors and the people I know, and many of them ask me to send Nikita their regards.
Tatyana, Yegor Balazeikin’s mother: There are a lot of difficulties we have faced along the way, actually. First of all, getting a decent medical examination, to which Yegor is entitled by law, because he has autoimmune hepatitis, because he has a disability, and he is entitled to certain medical care. It is very difficult to make this happen. We have struggled to get this done while he has been in the pretrial detention center in St. Petersburg. I can’t even imagine what will happen when he goes to the penal colony, because every three months he has to take tests to monitor his health.
Looking at all the political prisoners who have health problems, some of whom are already serving time, I assume that this will be very difficult to achieve. It’s probably even impossible. Psychologically, it is quite difficult, because you go through all the stages. First is the denial stage: “No, it can’t be happening, it can’t be happening to us.” Then there is the hatred stage, in which you hate everybody, just not understanding at all how it could have happened. The acceptance stage, I guess, has come to us a little bit, that is, we have accepted this situation, although we don’t agree with it. And then there is the feeling of powerlessness, the feeling that you are just a speck in this world, that you can’t protect your own child, you can’t defend his rights, you can’t prove in court that his actions were not offenses under Criminal Code Article 205 [“committing a terrorist act”], but offenses under Article 167 [“intentional destruction or damage of property under aggravating circumstances”] at most. They don’t even listen to you, because they already have their marching orders from above. And they have to execute these orders, because they have to maintain the picture they want to create—a picture of universal support for the “ruling party” and universal support for the so-called special military operation. And there is no way to fight it.
As for financial challenges, it is quite difficult financially to support a political prisoner, especially a child, given that Yegor shares a cell with boys who are often from orphanages or dysfunctional families, and they do not get care packages. We have been going to the pretrial detention center for fourteen months, and we bring a very large care package every week, which is meant not only for Yegor but also for the other five boys. Because we know that in order for our child to eat one apple from the care package, we need to pack five more apples, so that each of the boys eats an apple, and the same goes for all the other products. They are children. And we can’t feed only our own child and leave the other five hungry, so we certainly bring very large care packages, once a week. Each care package costs about seventeen to twenty thousand rubles [approx. 200 euros], and financially it is quite difficult. So, I think that financial difficulties are not the least of our difficulties either, actually.
Letters to Inmates
Ivan Astashin: Letters and correspondence are first of all personal interactions. A person in prison often does not have a telephone or internet, and is very limited in terms of personal interactions: they have their cellmates (although sometimes people are in solitary confinement) and the prison staff—that’s it. And their lawyer, if they have one, who visits them. Therefore, correspondence should be used first of all as a tool for personal interaction. In the first letter, it is better to tell them a little about yourself and your interests, so that in the future general topics for personal interaction can take shape. You can write almost anything, but the best option is to tell the inmate about your own interests, and ask them what they would be interested in finding out. Often people are interested in the news, and they have interests in a particular area. This should all be taken into account individually. And of course, you shouldn’t write anything that could harm a person by discrediting them or giving additional information to the prosecution
Anna and Nikita Uvarov
Anna, Nikita Ugarov’s mother: I would very much like people to not stop writing letters to Nikita: this aid should be the highest priority. I would advise people who would like to help political prisoners and their families to write letters to political prisoners, and if they want to find a connection with their relatives to communicate with them. Information about political prisoners is available on the Telegram channels Memorial: Supporting Political Prisoners and Solidarity Zone.
Support for Relatives
Ivan Astashin: You have to act differently in different cases. In some cases, the families need financial support to pay a lawyer or spend care packages. In other cases, this is not an issue, but emotional support is needed. I think it is always needed, in fact. In my experience, when you telephone the relatives of political prisoners, those conversations often last longer than is strictly necessary for discussing practical matters. People need to speak their mind, to share their feelings with someone. Often, they do not live in an environment in which they can share, as they are often ordinary people who don’t run inb activist circles. Emotional support is thus quite important.
Anna, Nikita Uvarov’s mother: The support of others is actually quite important, because when a person is left alone with this trouble, they can probably go crazy. I don’t know what would have happened to me if the case had not been publicized. I remember those six months of silence and fear, when there was no one I could tell and with whom I could consult, in order to feel that I was not alone…. And then I felt, I recognized how many of us there were, both those who were in such situations ourselves and people who understood everything we were going through and were willing to help and support us!
You can find information about what support Nikita Uvarov and his family need on the Telegram channel Case of the Kansk Teens.
You can send letters, books and articles to Nikita at the following address:
You can also send letters to Nikita via the online service ZT and the volunteer-run project RosUznik.
Yegor Balazeikin’s parents, wearing t-shirts that say “Common cause.”
Tatyana, Yegor Balazeikin’s mother: The support of others is the most important thing we have. We have the support of our son. You wouldn’t believe it, but he manages to support us whilst he is in prison! We support him in every way we can, and he supports us. He gives us the energy to go on with our lives. But at the same time, the support of the people around you is quite important, because you realize that you are not alone in this fight, and the people around you, they understand how unjust the court’s decision is, how unjust and unfair the sentence they passed is.
In fact, we have not dealt with any direct harassment in the wake of Yegor’s criminal case from family or friends. There are people whom we don’t know who write all sorts of nasty things about both Yegor and us in the feedback chat of Yegor’s Telegram channel, but there hasn’t been any large-scale bullying. Thank God, we’ve managed to avoid that. For the most part, people support Yegor and us. They write messages of support and comments that support Yegor and us.
What advice can I give to people who would like to help? To write letters, of course: it is safe, it is inexpensive, and it can be done from anywhere in the world. And, probably, to provide financial assistance to the families of political prisoners. Because it is quite dangerous to send packages or parcels without vetting them with the families, since a prisoner may not be given a care package that their family planned if someone suddenly sends one without vetting it first. And financial assistance is quite important, because relatives know what they sent in the last care package, what they need to send in the next one, and how many kilograms they have left to send. For the time being, this does not concern Yegor: he is a minor, so there are no restrictions on care packages to him. But on 6 August he will turn eighteen and the number of care packages he can get will be strictly limited. Generally speaking, letters and financial support are absolutely necessary. But nothing should be sent to political prisoners without the consent of their support groups or their families.
You can find information about what support Yegor Balazeikin and his family need on the Telegram channel The Yegor Balazeikin Case.
You can send letters to Yegor at the following address:
Balazeikin Yegor Danielevich (born 06.08.2006) Primorsky rayon, pos. Talagi, d. 112, FKU Arkhangelskaya VK UFSIN Rossii po Arkhangelskoi oblasti Arkhangelsk 163530 Russian Federation
You can also send letters to Yegor via the online service ZT and the volunteer-run project RosUznik.
Mistakes to Avoid
Anna, Nikita Ugarov’s mother: I was shocked when Nikita was detained. You see, when I’d gone to bed, the kids were home and I didn’t even suspect they had done something. I asked the police officers right then and there what would happen to the kids, and they replied that they would get off scot-free since they were minors. This reassured me and so I didn’t bother to do anything, but now I very much regret that I didn’t immediately retain counsel. I was completely stunned, at the arraignment, when they read out the statements by Bogdan and Denis (Ugarov’s “accomplices” in the case — Ed.), in which they requested that Nikita be remanded in custody since they feared for their lives because they were cooperating with the investigation. It was quite hard and hurtful that Nikita was betrayed by people he considered friends. The boys had been pressured by their mothers into signing the statements, and persuaded by the investigators, who had told them that due to their age no one would been punished. They had signed confessions, on which the investigators and FSB officers had worked very hard, running back and forth between interrogation rooms and adjusting the boys’ statements so that they coincided down to the last gramme when one of the boys didn’t know or remember a particular detail. Since Nikita refused to confess, he was made the main villain, and the confessions were the basis of the charges against him. Later, though, the mothers understood the mess they had made. They hired good lawyers and we all started sticking to the same position.
Ivan Astashin: It happens that a family turns down the services of civil rights lawyers, entrusting themselves instead to the court-appointed attorney and the lead case investigator, and naturally this harms the defendant. The case of Ilya Podkamenny is a perfect illustration of this. His mother decided that telling everything straight was the best thing to do. She told the authorities that her son had been storing petrol and was also planning to torch a military recruiting office. Ilya was ultimately charged with two more crimes, including planning to torch the military recruiting office. I don’t know whether Ilya also said anything about this or not, but it’s a fact that you don’t have to say anything, especially since Article 51 of the Constitution gives you the right to refuse to testify not only against yourself but also against your close relatives. You can say nothing at all. As we know, any testimony can be used against you and your relatives.
Or there’s the case of Alexei Rozhkov, who was released on his own recognizance in 2022 and could have left Russia. His relatives were opposed to this and tried to talk him out of it. He ultimately left the country but only a few months later. After he left he had to wait several months in Kyrgyzstan for an entry visa to Europe. Whilst he was waiting he was abducted by the security forces and taken back to Russia. It is hard to talk about what “might have been,” but it is possible that, had he left Russia earlier, he would have been able to leave for Europe more quickly and would not have wound up back in a Russian remand prison. But now he’s facing over twenty years in prison.
