What is going on with politically persecuted people? How did it change since February 2022 and fullscale invasion in Ukraine? Is the number of repression increasing? The answer to these and other questions is rapidly becoming outdated. The quickly changing reality requires new analytical approaches from us. These series of articles is an attempt to find such an approach. Everything you will read here is based on computational analysis of the most recent data.

What is repression? What is its role in contemporary Russia? Without an understanding of the scope and design of criminal political repression, we cannot come close to the answer. This understanding begins with the data. OVD-Info is an independent project which collects data covering political repressions in Russia since 2014. This page is based on our datasets.

How many people are imprisoned today?

When we speak of people who have been subjected to criminal political persecution in Russia, we are actually referring to people who are being accused of crimes by the state on the basis of political motives.

The fate of these people may be different. Before the trial, a person may be placed in custody, or may remain free. The list of punishments includes a variety of measures, some of which involve imprisonment.

Being deprived of liberty makes a person most vulnerable. The life of a prisoner is in the hands of the staff of the agency responsible for the enforcement of penalties. That is why imprisoned people require special attention.

The aim of this document is to provide an overview of those who are currently imprisoned for political grounds in Russia. Our focus is not on drawing the conclusions, but rather on presenting the most recent data available, which was uploaded at and analysed just recently, when you opened this page.

Who are those people?

are deprived of their liberty in Russia today based on political motives. of them are remanded in custody pending consideration of the criminal case file in court and sentencing. The remaining are deprived of liberty by the court as a punishment. Over the last quarter, the number of such people increased by . This is than in .

During the same time of the last quarter, at least were released from imprisonment. This represents a over . Thus, the number of people deprived of liberty is growing than the number of people released from forced isolation.

Most of these people are , . Most people fall into the age group of , followed by the group of . The median age is years. The oldest person deprived of liberty is years old. The youngest is years old.

Analysing the professions of the imprisoned people, we estimate that amonthg them there are .

Minors and young people

One of the distinctive features of repression in Russia that has emerged since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is the state's readiness to persecute minors and very young people.

Criminal liability in Russia generally begins at the age of 16. However, the law stipulates that criminal liability for committing certain serious crimes, such as murder, robbery, rape, theft and some other offences begins at the age of 14. The logic of the legislator is so that when committing certain unlawful acts, a person may realise their social danger and be in charge of their actions from the age of 14.

Yet, under the conditions of Russian law enforcement practice and the expansive interpretation of legislation, it is hard for teenagers to realise that they are committing terrorist and extremist offences. They too got accused of committing such serious crimes as , , , and .

Today, accused of committing an offence before reaching adulthood have been imprisoned. Another imprisoned for alleged offences committed when they were above the age of adolescence but before the age of 21 years.

Elderly people

When it comes to elderly people, Russian law does not recognise old age as a mitigating circumstance, but the court may take it into account in sentencing if it deems it necessary, since the list of mitigating circumstances in the law is open.

The difference with juveniles from the legislator's point of view is that a juvenile can still be corrected, while an elderly person with experience will not be corrected if he or she committed the offence at an advanced age with all the knowledge acquired during a lifetime.

Nevertheless, the number of elderly people imprisoned for political reasons is an important factor in assessing the current situation with persecution. In Russia, the retirement age is 60 for women and 65 for men. Based on that we can say that today at least and of retirement age are deprived of their liberty.

Where they are?

According to Russian law, people sentenced to imprisonment are placed in correctional institutions: correctional colonies, settlement colonies,educational colonies, prisons, correctional treatment institutions, and in some cases pre-trial detention centres.

Convicts sentenced to imprisonment serve their sentences in one or another type of penal colony depending on the gravity of the offence committed, the recidivism of offences, the nature of their guilt, the gender of the convicted person, the amount of punishment imposed and other circumstances described in the law.

The regime of the colony affects the conditions under which the prisoner serves his sentence - security in the premises, accommodation in dormitories or individual cells, and such conditions as the amount of money he can spend each month on food and basic necessities, the number of visits and parcels and packages per year.

A settlement colony is an area of relatively light restriction of liberty. Inmates are not locked up in cells, can move freely around the prison and, with permission, can go to study and work in the city or even live outside the facility with their families. There are no restrictions on the number of visits, parcels, packages, transfers, receipt and spending of money. are serving their sentence here. .

The conditions of detention in a penal colony are much stricter than in a penal settlement. It is a place of mass isolation of people who have committed socially dangerous criminal acts. They are separated from the rest of society by several security barriers: a high concrete fence with barbed wire and observation towers, a staff of wardens and guards with dogs, window bars and door locks. In the vast majority of cases, the colonies are also remote from villages and towns. are serving their sentences in common regime penal colonies. .

Strict regime colonies differ in their conditions of detention. While in common regime colonies inmates live under guard in premises resembling ‘dormitories’ of settlement colonies, in strict regime colonies inmates are locked in cells and have greater restrictions on the number of visits, packages, parcels, letters, spending money from their personal account, and the duration of daily walks in the open air. are serving their sentence here. Special and strict regime colonies exist only for men.

During the moratorium on the death penalty, the strictest verdict for a criminal in Russia is serving a sentence in a special-regime colony. In such colonies, prisoners are held in extremely harsh conditions. These are mainly those who have received a life sentence. Prisoners who have committed serious offences while serving their sentence are also sent here. Today, there are among currently imprisoned people who have been sentenced to special regime colony.

Russian law allows courts to impose compulsory medical measures on persons who have committed offences while insane or who have developed a mental disorder after committing the offence, as well as on persons suffering from a mental disorder or a sexual preference disorder (paedophilia) that does not exclude sanity. Measures of a medical nature include, in particular, compulsory observation and treatment by a psychiatrist on an outpatient basis, as well as compulsory treatment in medical organisations of various types providing inpatient psychiatric care.

Unfortunately, the same measures are used under various pretexts against those persecuted on political grounds. We know of at least who have been sentenced to compulsory treatment and are undergoing it today.

Analysing the exact location of imprisoned people today (except cases where this information is unavailable), we see that they are distributed among institutions in regions of Russia and the annexed territories of the Crimea peninsula.

As a general rule, those sentenced to imprisonment shall serve their sentence in correctional institutions within the region, in which they resided or were sentenced. In exceptional cases, due to the health condition of convicted persons or to ensure their safety or with their written consent, they may be sent to serve their sentence in another region.

If there are no suitable correctional institutions in the particular region where the convicted person resided or was convicted, or if it is impossible to accommodate him, he is sent to serve the sentence in the closest region where the necessary conditions for accommodation are available. Women and juveniles serve their sentences in those regions where appropriate correctional facilities are available.

However, the general rules do not apply to those persons who, for example, have been convicted of terrorism, treason, sabotage and some other offences described in the Penal Enforcement Code. The general rules also do not apply to those who have committed other offences but in respect of whom there is information about their commitment to terrorist ideology and its propaganda among other convicts, those sentenced to life imprisonment, those convicted of a particularly dangerous recidivism of offences and those to whom the death penalty has been commuted to imprisonment by way of pardon. The decision on where these persons will serve their sentences is made by the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN).

Isolation

The conditions of a prisoner's detention in a colony are not limited to the regime. The colony personnel have the right to tighten them by means of various penalties. Often this opportunity is used to pressure prisoners, including those imprisoned on political grounds.

There are three types of conditions for serving the sentence in correctional colonies: ordinary, light and strict. Convicts entering a general-regime colony after the sentence has come into legal force are sent to ordinary conditions of serving the sentence. Convicts who have been serving their sentences in light conditions may be transferred to the same conditions if they are found to be persistent violators of the established procedure for serving their sentences. At the same time, convicts, who were in strict conditions, can be transferred to ordinary conditions, if they have no penalties and conscientious attitude to labour during a certain period of time.

If the convicted person is characterised negatively and is found to be a persistent violator of the established order of serving the sentence, he is transferred to strict conditions of serving the sentence (SUS). No preliminary trial is required to place a prisoner in a SUS; the decision is taken by the colony staff in a commission. The SUS zone is isolated from the rest of the colony. In fact, it is a separate barracks, where living quarters are organised like cells. The maximum period of detention in the SUS within a maximum security colony is 9 months.

After transfer to the strict regime, the prisoner is kept in a separate room, which is locked. As a result, the detainee is deprived of the possibility to move freely within the territory of the penitentiary. Prisoners here are allowed an hour and a half of daily walks if they are not working outdoors.

The colony staff have other ways of curbing prisoner misconduct, which often consists of any dissent. All of the following methods existed and were actively used during the Soviet era. Although after the adoption of new penitentiary legislation in the early 1990s many of the restrictions were changed in a better direction, torture conditions remained and colony administrations are still free to use them even in spite of formal restrictions.

A SHIZO (punitive isolation cell) is a type of the isolation cell in an extremely small room. There are 2-4 shelf-type beds inside. All kinds of visits, telephone conversations, parcels from the outside and the purchase of food with money from the prisoner's personal account are prohibited. The prisoners here are taken out for a walk once a day for one hour.

My apartment is a cold stone bag of 5.5 square metres where no sunlight penetrates. It's always cold and damp here - regardless of the temperature of the outside environment. And hordes of mosquitoes that enter the cell from below through holes and cracks in the wooden floor. I have to take the lives of 70-80 mosquitoes a day to be able to sleep. But my main enemies are cold and dampness; I sleep without undressing, covered from head to toe, but it is still very cold.

Another problem is that I can only eat the meagre prison food, I have no way to maintain my strength and cannot consume what I have been given in parcels or what I have bought myself at the local shop. The local food is sometimes accompanied by half a cup of barely warm tea.

This is how described the conditions of the SHIZO in 2023.

Prisoners are often sent to the SHIZO for insignificant or invented behaviour: introducing themselves in the wrong way, drinking water for a long time, not fastening a button, making the wrong bed, brushing their teeth early - the prison staff can always find something to punish them for.

According to the law, a person cannot stay in a SHIZO for longer than 15 days, but in practice it is not uncommon for a prisoner to be sent back to the isolation ward for a new offence.

In the PKT-SHIZO barrack isolated from the zone, there were four punishment cells and two ordinary cells of the inner prison. According to the law, a prisoner could be kept in a punishment cell for only fifteen days without interruption; but I had already had experience, so I was not surprised when the first term was followed by a series of subsequent terms, and then I was transferred to the PKT regime for six months as a failure to take the path of correction.

This is how Natan Shcharansky, a Soviet dissident and refusenik who spent 9 years in Soviet prisons during the 1970s and 1980s, describes the situation in the book about his imprisonment 'Fear No Evil'.

Shcharansky spent 405 days in a prison cell. , during the three years of his imprisonment, was placed in the SHIZO 27 times, spending a total of 295 days in the isolation cell. It was in the SHIZO that his life ended, either as a result of murder or as a result of endless torture in these conditions.

SHIZOs continue to be regularly used against prisoners. Among them are people imprisoned on political grounds.

A PKT (cell-type premises). These cells are located right on the territory of the colony. Formally, the conditions in the PKT are slightly softer than in the SHIZO, so prisoners can be kept there for up to six months. In the PKT prisoners sleep on foldaway bunks, which are not allowed to be used after rising: the warders make sure that prisoners do not even sit on the bed while awake. The room has a table and benches that are fixed to the floor.

An EPKT (single cell-type premises) is a separate institution for the most ‘persistent violators of the regime’, where a convict is completely isolated and placed in solitary confinement. While there are PKTs in almost every colony, there are only one or two EPKTs per region. The main difference between the PKT and the EPKT is that it is no longer just one of the locked rooms in the colony, but a separate ‘covered’ zone for ‘persistent violators’, which is created and operates according to separate rules.

What are they being persecuted for?

Categorising persecution according to violation of different civil liberties, we see the following breakdown: . do not fall into these categories.

The most frequent criminal articles used in political persecutions resulted in imprisonment are: .

Below you can find the information on the most frequently used charges against imprisoned people.

Why are there so many terrorists and extremists here?

It is worth noting how often various accusations of terrorism and extremism are used against people imprisoned on political grounds.

The concept of ‘extremism’ is described very broadly in Russian law. For example, extremism is defined as violent change of the foundations of the constitutional order and/or violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, public justification of terrorism and other terrorist activities, incitement of social, racial, national or religious discord, propaganda of exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of a person on the basis of his or her social, racial, national, religious or linguistic affiliation or attitude to religion, use of Nazi attributes or symbols, or use of Nazi symbols or symbols, or the use of Nazi symbols and attributes.

Despite the fact that the legislation on countering extremism emphasises the violent nature of such activities, the vagueness of the wording makes it possible in practice to recognise as extremist in court such activities that are not violent in themselves.

For example, in 2021, the Anti-Corruption Foundation and its affiliated structures of were judicially recognised as extremist organisations. The court motivated its decision, in particular, by the fact that members of these organisations incited hatred and enmity towards representatives of the authorities and called for unauthorised rallies. Any cooperation with the FBK, display of its symbols or donations to the organisation are now banned in Russia under threat of punishment.

In March 2022, Russia recognised the activities of Meta Platforms Inc. as extremist and banned access to the social networks Facebook and Instagram. The reason for this was the temporary lifting of the ban in these social networks on publications calling for violence against the Russian military involved in the so-called ‘special operation’ in Ukraine and the leaders of Russia and Belarus after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As a result, today any demonstration by citizens or legal entities of the symbols of the social networks Facebook and Instagram, including links to personal accounts, as well as the placement of advertisements on these social networks automatically becomes extremist activity for which liability, including criminal liability, is provided.

Another vivid example of the expansive interpretation of anti-extremism legislation in Russia is the recognition in November 2023 by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of the ‘international LGBT social movement’ as extremist and the banning of its activities in Russia. In this regard, any positive reference to LGBT people in public space and even the display of a rainbow flag is now banned as extremist activity in Russia.

Terrorist activity, according to Russian law, is a type of extremism and is characterised primarily by the presence of violent ideology and violent practices to intimidate the population in order to destabilise the authorities. However, in practice, not all criminal cases of terrorism are related to violent actions.

For example, in 2019, a criminal case was brought against , a journalist from Pskov, for justifying terrorism. The reason for this was her reasoning on the radio air about the terrorist attack in the FSB Department of the Arkhangelsk region, where 17-year-old Mikhail Zhlobitsky set off an explosion in October 2018. The court found Prokopyeva guilty and found that she had purposefully popularised the idea that the state encourages citizens to commit serious crimes.

Perhaps the reason the offences listed in the table above are so frequently used is that Russian state authorities perceive any activity that could destabilise Russia's system of governance and question its legitimacy through the prism of extremism.

Some cases are also explained by the regional context. The labelling of any potentially dangerous activity in regions sensitive to the Russian authorities as extremist or terrorist activity is an effective means of ensuring political control. The risk of criminalisation under extremist and terrorist articles has a serious ‘chilling effect’ on society, as liability under these offences is fraught with extremely negative consequences in the form of virtually lifelong stigmatisation as an extremist or terrorist, high fines, and many years of imprisonment.

However, the Russian authorities do not limit themselves to brutal accusations of extremism and terrorism. In general, we see that of those currently imprisoned on political grounds, contains especially grave charges and grave charges. The severity of the charges in turn leads to a high number of grave sentences. resulted in sentences of more than 10 years' imprisonment.

Many of these cases draw attention and were analysed and evaluated by different human rights and civic projects such as .

How this situation is being developed?

The politically motivated persecutions that led to today's imprisonments cover a long period of time. But still the majority belongs to the period of recent years. Thus, falls in the period from onwards.

A total of of people imprisoned today belong to the period after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

By comparing time series data on political persecution, imprisonment and release, we can see some insights.

The balance between the total number of those prosecuted on political grounds and those imprisoned as part of this process has been changing significantly, especially since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The figure below shows the absolute difference between these numbers.

By comparing the growth of imprisonment between the s, we can draw different conclusions about the dynamics of these processes. Thus, we see that the total growth in deprivation of liberty by compared to the previous . The number of people taken into custody before the court by . The number of people imprisoned by court decision by . The graph below shows the changes in the overall trend of growth in the number of new imprisonments.

The median age of imprisonment person for last from to years.

The median prison sentence for the last and moved from in comparison with previous period. Overall, the changes within the categories of sentences are summarised in the figure below.

The graph below shows the changes between recent s in the absolute number of custodial sentences broken down by type of imprisonment.

Analysing the changes in the use of imputed offences against those imprisoned on political grounds, the following changes are particularly noticeable within last .

The table below summarises how the application of the most commonly used articles of the Russian criminal code for imprisonment on political grounds has changed in general. The small graphs show the quarterly number of imprisonments since 2012 against the total number of politically-motivated persecutions under the same article.

Who are we talking about?

Above we give many different figures that allow us to understand what is happening in Russia today with politically motivated imprisonments. However, behind each figure there is a person with a unique history. That is why this section gives you the opportunity to understand who exactly is behind each figure and sample of data above. You can click on a person to read more about their persecution history. You can also download the data sample you are interested in, in .csv format.