How many there are, we'll hardly know.
Oppositionists and "thought criminals." Who are political prisoners in modern Russia?
The Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language defines the word "political prisoner" as follows: "A person imprisoned for political activity directed against the authorities, the ruling system, etc." But political activity in modern Russia is practically impossible—and those increasingly finding themselves behind bars are guilty only of various kinds of thought crimes. Or those who never even considered politics, but on whom it fell without warning, like a brick on the head—in the form of a criminal charge for a post, a repost, or simply a careless word.
October 30th marks Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression in Russia. On this day, NeMoskva tells the story of those who have been subjugated by the state machine and those who help them survive.
We spoke with the families of political prisoners and asked volunteers about how they maintain contact between prison and the outside world. And we want to remind you: in addition to the well-known political prisoners whose names are household names, there are hundreds or thousands of others unknown to anyone but their loved ones. Their situation is even worse: they are completely defenseless against the FSIN's lawlessness.
The "Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial" project currently recognizes 1144 individuals as political prisoners. The human rights project OVD-Info estimates the number at around 2. In total, Memorial experts believe that at least 4000 people are imprisoned for political reasons in Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories. This is a minimum estimate; the actual number could be at least twice as high. Some voluntarily renounce this status because political prisoners face greater pressure in prison.
"This is a bad, abnormal dream."
Olga Leonova's birthday was October 19, 2023. They were planning to celebrate the milestone, 50 years, with family, loved ones, and friends. But the day before, something very strange began to happen.
Soon after her husband, Gennady Artemenko, left for work, her mother-in-law called and asked why Gena hadn't called her like he did every morning: Lidiya Vasilievna lives in Ukraine, and her son, naturally, is very worried about her.
Her husband's phone was turned off, and the car he was supposed to drive to work was parked in the yard. Olga finally got through to him, but his voice was strange—he sounded out of breath from walking so fast. Gennady assured her he was fine and would call his mother that evening, but the car simply wouldn't start.
She left home with a bad feeling. And when she called her husband at work, she was told he hadn't shown up that day—he'd called from home and said his blood pressure had spiked. She even wondered if he was planning some kind of surprise for her birthday. He couldn't just disappear—they were used to being in constant contact: sending each other funny messages, heart-shaped messages... Even the neighbors sometimes glanced at them askance: why were they holding hands like they were young?
But Olga was uneasy, and without waiting for the end of the workday, she went home. When she got home, she found a completely different kind of surprise: everything in the apartment had been turned upside down. Her first thought was: she'd been robbed.
— And then I look—my husband’s bag, the one he took to work, and in it there’s a crystal vase. I turn around—his ring is lying on the closet, "Olga recalls. Feeling like a character in a horror movie, she ran to her neighbor, from whom she learned that Gennady had been taken to the FSB, and that "something had been found" in the apartment.
“They found,” as it turned out later, a packet of gunpowder in the battery—so to speak, according to his specialty: Gennady is a reserve lieutenant colonel, an artilleryman.
"Well, yeah, where else would he store gunpowder if not in a hot radiator? They were holding him on the balcony during the search, so they planted it there." - says Olga.
Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Illegal acquisition and storage of explosive substances and explosive devices”) was the first – and most harmless – of those charged against her husband.
Gennady Artemenko was born in 1968 in the Ukrainian city of Dniprodzerzhinsk (now Kamenskoye). His mother, Lidiya Vasilyevna, still lives there. Since the war began, he has spoken to her in his native Ukrainian every morning and evening, without embarrassment in front of the neighbors.
Lidiya Vasilyevna was in her eighties and had been seriously ill in recent years. After the war broke out, Gennady and Olga decided to take her to live with them in the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region. They pestered consulates, but their visa applications were repeatedly denied, with promises to review the matter after the war ended.
In short, the personal data was ideal for constructing a serious political case, especially since correspondence with Ukrainian friends and subscriptions to Ukrainian Telegram channels were found, including the Crimean Tatar movement's "ATESH" channel, which was designated a "terrorist organization" just a year after Gennady's arrest.
The “compromising” photographs also came in very handy.
"In 1918, Gena celebrated his 50th birthday, and I bought tickets to an Okean Elzy concert in Kyiv. He liked the band, and we went to their concert in Kyiv from Moscow by BlaBlaCar—it was a very romantic trip. Near the stadium where the concert was held, we took a photo with the Ukrainian flag. This photo from the family archive ended up in the case file—they decided that we had radical views even back then." — says Olga.
This is how articles of "treason" and "calls for terrorism" were introduced. On June 27, 2025, Judge Sergei Krivosheev of the Second Western District Military Court sentenced Gennady Artemenko to 18 years in a maximum-security penal colony.
— On that terrible day, I told my mother: “There should be no birthday party, no guests, I won’t have time to bake a cake.” Cake! Can you imagine what was going through my head? I still wake up every morning and think it’s just some kind of bad, abnormal, crazy dream. Today, I left the apartment and went down the stairs. And only then did I realize I was on the ninth floor; there was an elevator. And I was just walking, I don’t know where. Some kind of blackout. I still don’t understand: what’s happening? Why all this? We’re an ordinary family, my husband is almost sixty, and he just wanted to take care of his mother, - says Olga.
For a long time, she believed everything would be cleared up and her husband would be sent home—surely they couldn't fail to understand how absurd and delusional it all was. Even when, during interrogation, one of the officers pounded his fist on the table and called her a Ukrainian prostitute. Even when, during a brief meeting with her husband, she hugged him and saw him wince in pain—his rib had been broken during the interrogation.
"The lawyer says to me, 'Olga, please don't get your hopes up, they won't let him go.' I look at him like, 'Artem, what are you doing? They're going to see my husband now and realize he's a normal person and a terrible mistake has been made. You don't understand anything.' I kept thinking, 'The people there are normal, they obey the law, they should figure this out and do the right thing.'
Friends, acquaintances, neighbors, with rare exceptions, turned away from her - they were afraid.
"The lawyer told me to get a character reference for Gena. I went to the neighbors. Some of them wouldn't even let me in. It turns out they'd gotten a call from the manager, who'd been actively involved in the whole process and had been a prosecution witness in court. She said, 'If Leonova comes running to you asking you to sign a character reference, don't sign anything, any papers. They're spies or traitors or something.' But there were people who signed and said everything would be sorted out, they'd figure it out.
Olga is now awaiting the appellate court's decision. She understands that the fight for her husband will be long. She left Russia because it was unsafe to stay.
"I don't know how to go on. I just realize now that I have to somehow save my husband, scream, knock on doors. 18 years is a death sentence for him. It's terrifying, and it's unclear what kind of terrible crime someone must have committed to get such a sentence."
Lidiya Vasilievna still doesn’t know about her son’s arrest – she’s told that he’s in Europe, in a refugee camp, and that everything is fine with him.
Talk about them!
Nadezhda Skochilenko enjoyed a rare blessing: in the summer of 2024, she was no longer the mother of a political prisoner. She continues to support those who remain behind bars because of their beliefs.
Artist Sasha Skochilenko was arrested in April 2022 for allegedly spreading fake news about the Russian army. She was charged with replacing price tags in a store with facts about the Russian army's actions. In November 2023, Sasha was sentenced to seven years in prison. The artist has numerous health issues, including gluten intolerance. These conditions worsened in pretrial detention. On August 1, 2024, Sasha Skochilenko was released as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries.
“I understand how important publicity is for people who are in prison, because it provides moral support. Many
People are afraid to speak up and stand up for their rights because they're under pressure. But if a person knows that they're being talked about outside prison, they're supported, and they maintain their spirit—even if they're thrown in solitary confinement or punishment cells. When Sasha was in prison, it was a huge boost for me when strangers talked about her. When I saw someone holding her portrait at a rally in another country. The families and friends of political prisoners suffer no less than they do, and perhaps even more: the person themselves committed the crime, many stand in solidarity with them, but relatives are often left alone with their experiences. Many are unsupported by either other relatives or their work circle—sometimes they simply have no one to talk to about what's happening to them., says Nadezhda.
And then there are those who are left alone with the prison system. Nadezhda says she recently had a chance conversation online with a woman who already had a court date: she was accused of justifying terrorism for a social media comment. She wrote, "If I get a fine, I'll report it." And then she disappeared.
Nadezhda was beside herself—she knew the woman was all alone in her city, and she had a "special-purpose" lawyer. With the help of the OVD-Info project, she managed to find the court file and learn about the woman's fate. The sentence was three years. Volunteers have created a support group on Telegram, but so far there is no further news.
— And how many people there are who are sometimes simply embarrassed to talk about their troubles and ask for help! — says Nadezhda. — When I open the news in the morning, I see five to eight new names—three years ago there weren't that many. Volunteers sometimes find unknown people in prison. For example, they're corresponding with someone, and they write: there's such-and-such a person in my cell, he's also in prison for political reasons, and no one writes to him or helps him. And prison is very expensive because absolutely everything has to be paid for, from basic food to medication, doctors, and lawyers. And those visiting relatives also need help.
Those about whom they write and those about whom no one knows
"Even if a person has loved ones who are willing to support them, security forces intimidate them so much that they may not disclose for years that their son, husband, wife, or daughter is in prison. They are told that any appeal to the public could harm their loved one. Therefore, all volunteers from human rights organizations agree that we don't know and are unlikely to ever know the real number of people imprisoned in Russia for political reasons."“ says volunteer Ksenia (name changed).
One of Ksenia's clients is a transgender man, Mark Kislitsyn, convicted of "treason." According to the verdict, Mark Kislitsyn, "informed of the beginning of the SVO, decided to provide financial assistance to Ukraine, which opposes the Russian Federation"—and provided such assistance in the amount of $10. In his personal correspondence, he also expressed "clear dissatisfaction with the beginning of the SVO," used obscene language to insult "the Armed Forces and the President of Russia," and stated that he was "proud of Ukrainians." For this, the Moscow City Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison in December 2023.
Mark had already received documents confirming his male gender, but for security reasons he was placed in a women's prison. Like any transgender person, he was particularly vulnerable to the prison system.
“We started helping him systematically after we found out that Mark was under a lot of pressure in the colony, — says Ksenia. — He was constantly placed in solitary confinement, and his letters weren't handed over. Or, for example, they might hand over two pages out of nine (Mark numbers the pages, so we can see what the colony confiscated).
For the past several years, Mark had been undergoing hormone therapy. Theoretically, the prison could have provided him with the appropriate medications, but they could not be guaranteed to be administered regularly. Mark faced a choice: refuse the therapy (which would have meant a painful period of poor physical health and mental problems) or alternate between receiving it and not receiving it (which would likely have led to even more painful "swings"). Therefore, he was forced to abandon the therapy.
"And there's another peculiarity at the prison where Mark is being held: political prisoners are jailed on state holidays. For example, everyone was jailed for a week on June 12th, and then during the three-day elections. They call it 'reinforcement'—a completely illegal practice. It's hard to explain why they do this, considering that Mark and the other political prisoners don't stage any protests." — says Ksenia.
Sharing the same prison colony with Mark are programmer Nina Slobodchikova (12 years, also for transferring five thousand rubles to a Ukrainian account), and Uralvagonzavod employee Viktoria Mukhametshina (12,5 years for allegedly transferring military-technical information to Ukrainian intelligence services for money). Like Mark, they aren't widely or frequently reported on. And yet, they are.
And here is about Chita pensioner Olga Ogarkova, who is serving a sentence for “public calls for terrorist activity or justification of terrorism” in a Transbaikal penal colony, can read just a few lines on the Memorial website.
At the end of August, Olga Ogarkova was sentenced to five years in prison for several anti-war comments on a local Telegram news channel. Olga had been working since her teens, but unofficially, so she was denied a pension due to insufficient work experience. Law enforcement claimed that this denial fueled her hatred of the state and the government—even though she had posted the comments earlier. Overall, the case is riddled with violations. Olga has serious health problems that have worsened in prison, but her only daughter is reluctant to help her. — says volunteer Marina (name changed).
No one knows how many more people like Olga Ogarkova—unknown, helpless, and confused—are in Russian prisons. But some of them can be helped through human rights projects:
"Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial";
And with the help of the project "Vestochka" You can write a letter to a political prisoner.
