Russia introduces new laws to jail critics, but denies it holds any political prisoners

Every year on 30 October, the world marks the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions. Starting in 1974, when Soviet political prisoners coordinated a collective, one-day hunger strike in defiance of their captors and to call for official recognition of their status as political prisoners, the date today carries an uncomfortable irony in Russia. People are being imprisoned there on charges that rights groups say are false, yet the authorities refuse to recognise that political prisoners exist. Memorial, one of the main groups that kept the memory of Soviet repression alive and documented today’s cases, has been liquidated in Russia and branded “extremist.” It continues its activities in exile.

Human rights groups say Russia may hold around 11,000 political prisoners and independent monitors say their number has grown sharply since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Kremlin denies this branding them as criminals or even terrorists. Instead, it uses the term “political prisoner” extensively in relation to Ukraine and resort to what-aboutism, claiming that Kyiv jails people for their political views or pro-Russian stance – Russia’s human rights ombudsman has even called for their release. Ukrainian media see this as part of a Kremlin foreign interference and manipulation of information (FIMI) campaign to discredit Ukraine’s justice system and deflect attention from Russia’s own record.

The Kremlin denies holding political prisoners but accuses Ukraine of doing so

On 30 September, when Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was asked about reports that the US might ease sanctions in exchange for the release of political prisoners, he said Moscow “categorically” denies the existence of any political prisoners and said framing it this way was “entirely inappropriate.” Instead, Russia refers to political prisoners only in the context of alleged politically motivated persecution of people in Ukraine.

Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s human rights ombudsman until May 2026 (now replaced by Yana Lantratova), has argued that she does not recognise the term “political prisoner” because Russian legislation lacks a definition of it. However, she clearly thinks Ukraine keeps Russians as political prisoners. In October 2025, after a sailor was freed from Ukrainian captivity, Moskalkova reportedly told TASS that a significant number of the Russians detained by Ukraine were arrested for formal or trumped-up reasons, often simply because of their nationality or pro-Russian stance. According to Ukrainian outlet RBC-Ukraine, Moskalkova told TASS she would call for the “release” of 500 people whom “she called political prisoners.”

Pro-Kremlin outlet Vzglyad reported that Vladimir Saldo, “governor” of Russian-controlled Kherson Region, told TASS that people Kyiv accuses of supporting Russia are held in southern Ukraine’s penal institutions. “There is information that prisoners accused by the neo-Nazi regime of political crimes and of supporting Russia are held predominantly in prisons in the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.”

Debunking Russian claims

However, claims about “political prisoners” and civilians imprisoned merely for “supporting Russia” are unsubstantiated. Civilians have been imprisoned by Ukrainian authorities under a legal reform introduced in March 2022 in the frame of Russia’s military aggression, which punishes collaboration with these invading forces, including serious crimes such as treason or sabotage. While mistakes and abuses could have taken place, especially in the context of an ongoing war, this is very different from claiming that these people are jailed for supporting a specific political option.

Neither the United Nations nor prominent human rights organisations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch consider these individuals arrested by Ukrainian authorities as political prisoners.

Political prisoners in Russia

Meanwhile, political imprisonment in Russia has grown sharply since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As of October 2026, the project “Support for Political Prisoners,” run by Memorial, recognises 1,825 people as political prisoners. It reports that they are held in 336 institutions across 78 regions, including annexed Crimea, and it lists 78 political prisoners who have died in custody. Memorial sorts those it recognises as political prisoners into three categories: general, anti-war, and religious, with the religious category further split into Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

A map of the locations of the institutions where political prisoners are held. (Memorial)

Memorial identifies political prisoners using the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s definition, excluding anyone who committed non-defensive violence or advocated for violence. It accepts that its verified figures are too low and estimated in 2025 that the true total, including Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages, was probably around 10,000. Most cases stem from laws introduced in March 2022, just after the invasion of Ukraine. Memorial reports that most prisoners were convicted of spreading “knowingly false information” about the armed forces or “discrediting” them. Other charges include confidential cooperation with a foreign state and calls for activities against state security.

OVD Info, an independent human rights media project, reports near-daily politically motivated detentions, dismissals, interrogations, searches, and arrests, and maintains a database of politically motivated criminal cases. Citing the UN Special Rapporteur, it reports that more than 2,000 people face political persecution and detention, at least 120 of them at critical risk because of age, illness, or disability. Its own, less formal tracking put the figure at over 3,000 in early 2025.

Political prisoners in Russia: cases by alleged offence

Some of Russia’s political prisoners are known; none was more prominent than Alexei Navalny, whose case drew international attention. However, most cases do not garner this attention. Memorial reports that most political prisoners are convicted of spreading false information about the armed forces or discrediting them. Many are ordinary people who are barely known outside their own communities.

Spreading “fake news” and discrediting the military

In March 2022, Russian lawmakers passed amendments to the criminal code that make spreading “knowingly false information” an offence punishable by fines or jail time.

In April 2025, a hairdresser from St. Petersburg was sentenced to five years and two months on a charge of spreading fake news about the Russian army. Opposition politician Ilya Yashin was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for discussing alleged Russian war crimes in Bucha on his YouTube channel. An opposition politician from a village near St. Petersburg, Dmitry Skurikhin, began displaying anti-government slogans in 2009; he opposed Crimea’s annexation and later supported Navalny. In February 2023, he posted a photo of himself holding a sign apologising to Ukraine. He was arrested and later convicted of discrediting the Russian military and sentenced to 18 months in a penal colony near St. Petersburg. On 16 November 2023, after a year-long trial, a musician and artist from St. Petersburg was sentenced to seven years in prison, charged with “public dissemination of knowingly false information” about the Russian armed forces. On 31 March 2022, Sasha Skochilenko had replaced supermarket price tags with labels sharing information about the bombing of the Ukrainian city Mariupol.

Terrorism or participation in a terrorist organisation

The Kremlin increasingly uses terrorism-related charges to portray political prisoners and critics of the regime as criminals or terrorists, turning the criminal justice system into a tool for suppressing dissent. Russian courts have handed down lengthy prison sentences in cases ranging from social media posts to alleged terrorist plots. Many of these prosecutions rely on Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code, particularly Article 205.2, which criminalises public calls for terrorism and is frequently used to prosecute online expression. In this way, the authorities seek to recast political dissent as a security threat and justify repression under the guise of counterterrorism.

Charged with calling for terrorism and extremism over online posts, including some approving Ukraine’s offensive action, Ivan Pilov, 31, from St Petersburg, was detained in September 2025. On 3 February 2026, the court sentenced him to six years in a general-regime penal colony. Accused of belonging to the “Network” terrorist organisation, Dmitry Pchelintsev was sentenced to 18 years in a case with ten other defendants. Investigators say the group planned to overthrow the constitutional order, but supporters insist that it never existed and that the case is persecution of anarchists. In November 2023, a Moscow court sentenced Aleksandr Strukov, a photographer for Navalny’s team in 2018, to eight years in prison. He was convicted of making public calls for terrorism, inciting hatred, and violating citizens’ right to freedom of conscience and religion. The charges stemmed from Telegram posts criticising President Putin and his government. Accused of directing an “undesirable organisation”, former Open Russia director Andrei Pivovarov was sentenced to four years in prison by a Krasnodar court on 15 July 2022. Amnesty International said he had committed no internationally recognised crime and was jailed for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association.

Criminal charges as a tool of political repression

Criminal charges are also brought against political dissenters and have been described by human rights advocates as politically motivated kompromat.

Historian Yury Dmitriev, head of Memorial’s Karelian branch, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in December 2021 on charges including the production of child pornography and sexual assault involving a minor. Dmitriev denied the allegations, which human rights organisations have described as politically motivated and fabricated. Now 70, he is held in a strict-regime penal colony in Mordovia. For 30 years, he had worked to locate mass graves and identify perpetrators of Stalin-era crimes.

The Kremlin denies that political prisoners exist in Russia while accusing Ukraine of jailing people for speaking Russian or sympathising with Russia. This is a brazen inversion. Behind it are thousands of people imprisoned in Russia for simply exercising their basic rights, whose stories the Kremlin is determined to bury.