Crackdown sharpens in Russia

In April of this year six members of the anti-war youth movement Vesna (“Spring”) were sentenced to between six and twelve years in prison. The charges against them included “disseminating false information about the military”, “disrespect for days of military glory,” and “incitement to organize mass unrest”.

In June Maxim Kruglov, deputy chair of the anti-war Yabloko (“Apple”) party was sentenced to seven years in prison for “spreading false information about the Russian military”.

The same month OVD-Info, a Russian human rights organisation which reports on the repression of anti-war activists, was officially classified as an “extremist organisation”. Virtually any involvement with OVD-Info became illegal overnight.

In July Boris Nadezhdin, a longstanding anti-war campaigner and critic of Putin, was designated as a “foreign agent” and convicted of displaying “extremist symbols” (a picture of the late Alexei Navalny) on his social media. The conviction meant that Nadezhdin, who has since fled abroad, could not stand in next month’s parliamentary election.

The same month Ilya Remeslo, a former pro-Kremlin blogger who switched to opposing Putin and the war in Ukraine, was charged with “spreading false information about the Russian military” and placed in detention pending his trial.

In August 2026:

• A criminal case was opened against Natalya Sindeyeva and Mark Ten, directors of the television channel Dozhd (“Rain”), accusing them of organising the activities of a “foreign agent” and “undesirable organisation”. They face between two and six years in prison.

• Yabloko deputy chair Lev Shlosberg, held in detention since last December, was sentenced to eleven years and one month in a penal colony for “discrediting the Russian military” (by calling for an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine) and “spreading false information about the Russian military” (by posting an anti-Putin front page of the Daily Mirror).

• Nikolai Bondarenko, a leading member of the very nationalist and very antisemitic Russian Communist Party was detained and put on trial for displaying “extremist symbols” (a picture of Navalny) on his social media.

• The Russian Supreme Court rejected an appeal against its earlier judgment banning Yabloko from contesting next month’s parliamentary election. Yabloko is the only Russian political party which opposes the war: “For a ceasefire agreement, diplomacy and peace!” and “For a Russia free from fear and political repression!”

These recent politically motivated prison sentences, accompanied by further suppression of free speech and political pluralism, continue the crackdown on opposition to Russia’s war which began as soon as Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Since then a raft of new catch-all laws have been introduced with the aim of stifling any expression of opposition to the war.

These include: “confidential cooperation with a hostile state”, “providing financial, material technical or other aid to an enemy”, “disseminating false information about the Russian military”, “discrediting the Russian military”, and “advocacy for sanctions (against Russia)”.

The scope of laws already on the statute book has also been broadened in order to make convictions easier. This applies to laws covering “espionage”, “treason”, “disclosure of state secrets”, “undesirable organisations”, and – ironically – “hate speech”.

Thus, for example, there has been an approximately 35-fold increase in convictions for “espionage” and “treason” since the start of the war. Over the same period of time the average length of prison sentences for anti-war activities has increased from 36 months (2022) to 88 months (2025).

The increasing level of repression underlines the authoritarian nature of the Putin regime. It has also made it too risky to organise public on-the-streets opposition to the war. In 2022 around 19,000 people were detained for taking part in anti-war street protests. By 2025 the figure was down to one.

And it should not be forgotten that even now, over four years since Putin’s invasion of February 2022, it remains a crime in Russia to call the war a war rather than use the official expression of “Special Military Operation”. §