«Political Prisoners. Memorial» is 3 years old today! 

In these three years, around 2,500 people have been imprisoned in Russia for political reasons. Hundreds of people and organisations have been added to the register of ‘foreign agents’, and thousands of people have been added to the list of terrorists and extremists. In 2024 our website was blocked, in 2025 the project was given the status of a ‘foreign agent’, and the project head, Sergei Davidis, was put on the list of terrorists and extremist because of his comments about Ukrainian Azov fighters.

Despite the hardships, we have been actively working for three years: collecting information on political persecution, studying hundreds of criminal cases and providing assistance to political prisoners. 

In this period our project has recognised 754 people as political prisoners.

126 people received legal assistance during the investigation stage and in courts of first, appellate and cassation instances. For example, Nikolai Trofimov, who was prosecuted for defacing flags in protest against the war, was released from detention and then from house arrest thanks to the work of his lawyer. 

We helped 64 people whose rights were violated in detention. For some of them it was possible to obtain the right to call their loved ones and to receive and send letters. In particular, thanks to the work of a lawyer, Volodymyr Lynnyk, a Ukrainian citizen, received medical assistance and was sent to a hospital for examination.

Another 243 people (among them at least 104 citizens of Ukraine) received humanitarian aid. Political prisoners received vital medicines, food, new shoes, clothes, mattresses, household appliances and hygiene products.

In three years we have collected over 20 million roubles (~ over €212 000) for the needs of political prisoners. On several occasions, we have been able to provide assistance to the families of prisoners who happened to be in a particularly difficult situation. 

We are growing both as a human rights organisation providing real help to political prisoners and as an encyclopaedia of solidarity with victims of political persecution, where you can always find up-to-date information about them and ways to help them. We already have information about more than 1,600 people imprisoned for political reasons on our website in Russian. We are working hard to translate all of the profiles and add at least some short description to each case. We want to make sure that we can give you the latest updates on all of these prisoners so that no one is left without attention and support.

We need your help to continue our work! Please support us by making a donation or taking up a small monthly subscription in favour of the project. Right now we need to raise €7400 to cover the organisational expenses of the project. 

Every single sum you contribute for the development and work of our organisation gives us the resources to raise three times as much money for direct assistance to political prisoners. And this is, of course, in addition to our work on maintaining lists of political prisoners, collecting and spreading information about political persecution.