EXPLAINING THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN RUSSIA |
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Hello and welcome to the Digest. |
Today’s Dissident Digest is drawn from OVD-Info’s 2025 Overview of Repression in Russia. If you’re reading this through Memorial, welcome — consider subscribing to the Digest to receive English-language analysis, investigative insights, and human stories from the frontlines of Russian repression. |
To our regular subscribers — welcome back. After some restructuring, the Digest will now appear once or twice per month. This schedule allows us to focus on depth, nuance, and the context behind the statistics, rather than just reporting numbers. If you find the content meaningful, please share it — expanding our audience helps ensure that the stories of those facing repression are not forgotten. The Digest is no longer written personally by Dan Storyev — but by the OVD-Info media team.
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Trigger warning:
This is a newsletter about Russian repressions. Sometimes it will be hard to read. |
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Repression in Numbers and Its Subtlety |
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The year 2025 presents a paradox: politically motivated criminal cases returned to pre-war levels, and protest-related arrests fell roughly threefold compared to 2024 — a reduction that might suggest a softening of repression. Yet beneath these statistics lies a far more insidious reality. The average sentence in political cases increased from six to eight years compared to 2021, while the number of convictions in such cases has grown threefold relative to pre-war figures.
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The state’s approach to repression is evolving: pressure is increasingly exerted in ‘gray areas’ where data is scarce, legal categories are opaque, and the government controls the flow of information. Entire swaths of cases — including treason, espionage, and terrorism — are now only analyzable at an aggregate level. Individual details are often inaccessible, and the political significance of convictions is concealed behind legal jargon and institutional secrecy.
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The criminal code has become a tool for ideological enforcement. People labeled as ‘foreign agents,’ human rights defenders, activists, or critics of the government are prosecuted under extremist or terrorist legislation. LGBT communities are specifically targeted: individuals, media outlets, bookstores, and streaming platforms face criminal charges for distributing or even providing information about queer relationships. Internet restrictions are normalized regionally, and wartime censorship is gradually embedded into institutional practice, though enforcement often remains vague and unpredictable.
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Laws and the Machinery of Control |
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The legal landscape has shifted decisively toward full societal control. In 2025, citizens were forbidden from searching for ‘extremist’ content online and from advertising VPN services, a move that both limits information access and extends state oversight of digital life. The FSB now operates its own pre-trial detention centers, reminiscent of 1990s practices, and ‘foreign agents’ are barred from conducting educational activities.
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The war in Ukraine provides the pretext for these legal changes, but it is evident that the trend is irreversible: the Kremlin is codifying mechanisms of surveillance and ideological control that will outlast any immediate conflict. Even those not directly involved in political opposition — foreign citizens, migrant workers, students, and conscripts — face administrative protocols, detentions, and criminal investigations. While not all pressure in these cases can be classified as political repression, the scale and pervasiveness of state control is impossible to ignore.
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Treason, Terrorism, and Extremism: Legal Tools for Political Ends |
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In 2025, the Kremlin actively expanded the use of particularly severe criminal charges, including treason, espionage, and terrorism. Cases under these statutes have become politically charged by default. In the occupied territories, Ukrainians face systematic torture and inhumane treatment under terrorism charges. Sentences for terrorism-related convictions are increasingly severe, and minors are appearing in courts more frequently.
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Prosecutions of donations to Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation" have increased, and the organization itself has been labeled a terrorist entity. Prominent opposition figures face charges under extremism and terrorism legislation. Treason charges, in particular, are broadly interpreted: even contact with foreigners can be grounds for prosecution. As Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with the human rights project Department One, notes: ‘All current criminal cases involving treason and espionage should be considered politically motivated a priori. The wording of these articles effectively makes it possible for any Russian citizen to be prosecuted for communicating with a foreigner — provisions comparable to Afghanistan or Iran, but not democratic countries.’
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Memory, Exile, and Global Resistance |
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Despite growing repression, Russian civil society has not disappeared. It has adapted. |
One of the clearest examples is the international expansion of Memorial’s Returning the Names initiative. Every year on October 29, people around the world gather to take part in Returning the Names — an annual act of remembrance for the victims of Soviet State Terror. During the event, participants read aloud the names of those who were killed, executed, or imprisoned under the regime. What began as a local ritual of remembrance in Moscow has become a global act of solidarity.
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In 2024, commemorations took place in more than 140 cities across 50 countries. In 2025, exiled activists continued organizing readings and vigils worldwide, ensuring that victims of political repression are remembered even as the Russian state attempts to erase them from public consciousness.
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This shift reflects a broader reality: as space for civic action inside Russia shrinks, much of civil society is forced into exile. Networks are rebuilt abroad. Documentation, legal assistance, and public advocacy increasingly depend on international cooperation. |
Repression is no longer only a domestic issue. Its consequences are global. |
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The 2025 report shows that repression in Russia is becoming less visible, more bureaucratic, and more difficult to confront. Mass arrests are being replaced by selective prosecutions. Public trials by secret investigations. Open censorship by legal ambiguity. |
This is precisely why documentation matters. |
Without independent monitoring, these processes remain hidden. Without legal support, defendants are left alone. Without international attention, abuses become normalized. |
OVD-Info works to ensure that this does not happen.
We document politically motivated prosecutions. We support political prisoners and their families. We provide legal aid. We preserve historical memory. We make repression visible when the state tries to conceal it. |
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This work is only possible because of your support
If you value independent reporting, legal assistance, and the preservation of historical truth, please consider supporting our work.
Your donation helps us:
— Document new cases of repression
— Provide legal defense
— Support political prisoners
— Preserve public memory
— Keep independent information accessible
Every contribution matters. |
Thank you for reading, for sharing,
and for standing in solidarity.
The OVD-Info team. |
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The Digest is created by OVD-Info, edited by Dr Lauren McCarthy |
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