As Russia’s abusive war against Ukraine continued, the Kremlin further intensified the crackdown on dissent and civil society, targeting critics inside the country and in exile. Authorities continued using ill-treatment in custody as a tool of repression and expanded the use of bogus charges of undermining state security, including “confidential cooperation” with foreigners.
President Putin, and several other senior Russian officials wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, remained at large. In June 2025, Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement to establish a Special Tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders for the crime of aggression related to the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU adopted additional sanctions on Russia and Russian officials, including over human rights abuses in Russia, the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children, and abuses in detention centers in occupied areas of Ukraine.
In November, prosecutors banned Human Rights Watch as “undesirable.”
The number of political prisoners rose to 1,217 (108 of them women), according to Memorial, compared to 805 at the end of 2024.
Freedom of Expression
Courts continued to hand down draconian prison terms for anti-war speech and peaceful dissent.
From Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to the end of September 2025, 692 people had faced criminal prosecution on bogus charges of “false information” or “discreditation” of the army, according to Russian rights group OVD-Info. In total, at least 1,299 had faced criminal prosecution for opposing the war, and 373 remained imprisoned on these charges at time of writing.
In May, a military court sentenced Sergei Veselov to 13 years in prison for writing on the wall of a bus stop shelter the approximate number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. The court viewed Veselov’s conduct as an act of vandalism motivated by political hatred, dissemination of “fake news” about the army, and evidence of his alleged participation in the Freedom of Russia legion, a unit of Russian nationals fighting on the Ukrainian side that Russian authorities labeled a terrorist organization.
Courts continued to hand down draconian sentences to journalists. In April, a Moscow court sentenced four journalists to five-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly producing content for the Anti-Corruption Foundation, designated as “extremist” by the authorities in 2021. In July, in closed proceedings, a court in Ufa sentenced RusNews journalist Olga Komleva to 12 years in prison on charges of participating in the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s activities and spreading false information about the army.
The government continued to censor information and opinions about Russia’s war on Ukraine that were not aligned with the official narrative. In August, digital rights group Roskomsvoboda found that authorities had blocked more than 25,000 websites and links on such grounds. However, the total number of materials censored since February 2022 is in the hundreds of thousands.
A law adopted in April prohibited placing advertisements on websites of organizations designated “undesirable” or “extremist” and other websites blocked by Russian authorities, including those of many independent media outlets. Another April law introduced harsher penalties for calling for sanctions against Russia, “discrediting” the army, and assisting in enforcement of decisions of organizations to which Russia is not a party, when motivated by financial gain. Another new law empowered the authorities to prosecute critics in absentia on a variety of charges. July amendments allowed films to be banned for discrediting “Russian traditional values” and required online platforms to monitor and remove such content.
Laws on “Foreign Agents” and “Undesirables”
Authorities expanded the laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations,” and used them to target media, human rights defenders, and other critics. In 2025, law enforcement agencies significantly escalated prosecutions of critics designated as “foreign agents,” mostly those in exile.
New legislation, which entered into force in March, banned “foreign agents” from accessing their income from intellectual property, property sales or rentals, and investment returns.
In April, new amendments barred “foreign agents” from any education-related activities and from receiving municipal support or “socially-oriented NGO” status, which provides reduced taxation and other benefits. A November law increased their taxes and deprived them of all tax benefits.
Another April law expanded grounds for “foreign agent” designation to include, for example, assisting international organizations to which Russia is not a party, such as the ICC, involving children in producing online content, or financing content production.
A June law further toughened the labeling requirements for “foreign agents,” increased penalties for violations, and introduced new fines for failure to comply with demands from officials overseeing “foreign agents.”
Russia still lacks a comprehensive domestic violence law. An independent initiative to combat domestic violence and support survivors, Nasiliu.Net, was designated a “foreign agent” in 2020. It had to scale down its programs in 2025 after multiple commercial providers, including those supporting its emergency hotline, dropped it, citing the “risks” associated with its “foreign agent” status. In October, the initiative announced its closure. The closure or weakening of organizations like Nasiliu.Net further reduces survivors’ access to support, leaving women exposed to abuse with limited remedies or state protection.
Authorities escalated criminal prosecutions over alleged violations of “foreign agents” legislation. In July, Russia’s chief investigative agency reported 72 criminal cases launched in the first half of 2025.
October amendments further streamlined criminal prosecution for failure to comply with the “foreign agents” legislation, allowing for criminal prosecution following just one misdemeanor offense. Prior to that, criminal charges generally required two prior misdemeanor convictions.
In 2025, the Justice Ministry designated 215 individuals and organizations as “foreign agents,” compared to 164 in 2024, including numerous news outlets, Russian and foreign journalists, artists, and civil society activists.
Leading Russian rights organization Memorial was particularly hard hit. In January, authorities added Memorial’s political prisoners project to the “foreign agents” register. Over the next few months, they designated as “foreign agents” dozens of current and former Memorial leaders and members.
Among other rights defenders added to the “foreign agent” list are OVD-Info’s co-founder Grigory Okhotin, Russia’s Movement of Conscientious Objectors’ lawyer Artyom Klyga, Amnesty International’s Russia researcher Oleg Kozlovsky, and Solidarity Zone, a group supporting those imprisoned for anti-war expression.
Authorities continued to use legislation on “undesirable organizations” to arbitrarily ban anti-war initiatives, rights groups, media, and academic institutions and programs. In 2025, 78 new groups were added to the Justice Ministry’s register of “undesirables,” the highest annual number since the register’s creation in 2015, bringing the total to 281.
In May, the Prosecutor General banned Radio Echo as “undesirable.” The outlet had been shut down by the authorities in March 2022, a week after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine but then re-opened in exile.
In 2025, the Prosecutor General increasingly targeted international rights groups, banning Amnesty International, Journalists in Need Network, Justice for Journalists Foundation, Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Reporters Without Borders, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and Human Rights Watch.
Using the August 2024 amendments that extended the scope of the “undesirables” legislation to foreign governmental bodies and international organizations, the Prosecutor General added the U.S. Helsinki Commission and the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, created under the auspices of the Council of Europe, to the list of “undesirables,” along with numerous pro-Ukraine and anti-war groups.
In 2025, courts sanctioned at least 132 people under the Code of Administrative Offenses for alleged involvement in the activities of “undesirable” organizations.
In May, a Moscow court sentenced Grigory Melkonyants to five years in prison on charges of leading prominent Russian election monitoring group Golos, which authorities falsely equated with the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, banned in Russia as “undesirable” in 2021. At time of writing, Melkonyants, who appealed the guilty verdict, remained behind bars and Golos ceased all operations for fear of prosecutions against its other members. In April, the same court sentenced Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe and Free University co-founder, to six years of imprisonment in absentia on charges of leading these two organizations, designated “undesirable” in 2023.
Freedom of Association
Authorities continued to misuse “extremism” and “terrorism” laws to infringe on freedom of association.
Law enforcement agencies persisted in targeting members and supporters of the banned Anti-Corruption Foundation. Investigation by the independent outlet Mediazona showed a sharp increase in prosecutions for donations to the foundation in 2025, with at least 33 new criminal cases brought from January to July.
In January, a court in Vladimir region sentenced three lawyers to prison terms ranging from three-and-a-half to five-and-a-half years for providing legal services to the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s founder Navalny, who died in prison in 2024. Authorities throughout the country continued to prosecute people for commemorating Navalny’s memory, sharing information about him, using his name, or displaying his portrait.
In November 2024, Russia’s Supreme Court designated as “terrorist” the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, a post-colonial debate platform. In January, the Federal Security Service published a list of 172 organizations deemed to be the forum’s “structural units.” This list and the list of supposed “units” of the so-called Anti-Russian Separatist Movement outlawed in June 2024 as “extremist” include numerous political and rights groups, media outlets, Indigenous people’s organizations, and academic entities.
In November 2025, the Supreme Court designated the Anti-Corruption Foundation a “terrorist organization.”
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In 2025, at least two individuals received prison sentences, of six and three years respectively, for allegedly “involving” people in the “international LGBT movement,” which the Supreme Court had designated as “extremist.” Another person received a compulsory labor sentence for repeated displays of “extremist” symbols, such as the rainbow flag. In September, a court in Tula handed down a two-year suspended sentence for alleged participation in the “LGBT movement” to a local resident over a social media post about the need for people to defend their rights.
In December 2024, Andrei Kotov died by suicide in pre-trial detention, where he had been held on charges of running an “extremist organization” – a travel agency that sought to market tourist travel to gay men. In November, a court in Moscow found him guilty posthumously.
In May, investigators pressed criminal charges against three staff of publishing houses over participating in the “LGBT movement” and recruiting people into it by means of selling fiction books with references to LGBT people and same-sex relationships. At time of writing, they remain under house arrest, each facing up to 12 years in prison.
Authorities imposed at least 98 punishments under the Code of Administrative Offenses for displaying symbols associated with LGBT rights, mostly the rainbow flag.
Authorities continued to widely use the “gay propaganda” ban. Police pressed charges against individuals, television channels, streaming services, bookstores, and online marketplaces that featured books discussing sexual orientation and gender identity, and against bars popular among LGBT people. Large fines against bookstores and criminal charges against publishers over books that explore LGBT themes apparently triggered a massive purge on Russian book markets.
Reproductive Rights
The number of Russian regions restricting the right to abortion continued to rise. With the authorities aggressively encroaching on reproductive rights since 2023, at time of writing, “incitement to abortion” was legally banned in more than 20 regions. In September, the ban entered into force in Bryansk and Kirov regions.
In February, the governor of Vologda region shared his plan to put an end to abortions in the region. Subsequently, media outlets reported that medical personnel systematically refused to perform the procedure. Prosecutors warned Vologda healthcare facilities against illegal refusals and brought cases against two hospitals, which were found guilty and fined for illegally refusing abortion care. However, doctors continued to refuse to provide abortions and in July, the governor stated that no abortions were performed in the region that month, compared to 112 the year before.
Under pressure from authorities, an increasing number of private clinics across Russia stopped providing abortion services. The head of the Patriarchate’s Commission on Family, Motherhood, and Childhood, Fyodor Lukyanov, claimed that in 2025 this number reached 25 percent.
In January, in Sevastopol, in Russia-occupied Crimea, a 29-year-old woman became the first person to be sanctioned under Russia’s “child-free propaganda” ban, which had entered into force in December 2024. A local court sentenced her to a 50,000-ruble (US$606) fine for a social media post that promoted a “care-free lifestyle.”
Federal broadcasters and public officials aggressively promoted childbirth, including at a young age, and intensified their endorsement of a narrow vision of “traditional family,” which directly undermines women’s and girls’ reproductive rights. These measures form part of a broader state-driven campaign to suppress women’s and girls’ autonomy.
Chechnya
Chechen authorities under governor Ramzan Kadyrov continued to retaliate against family members of their opponents.
In April, police in Achkhoi Martan put the body of a 17-year-old boy, killed by Chechen law enforcement agents after he attacked two police officers with a knife, on display in the town square and forced students and public servants to gather around the body in a rally of approval. Kadyrov accused the leaders of Niiso, an opposition Telegram channel, of masterminding the knife attack and ordered their relatives and the assailant’s family members to be expelled from Chechnya with their property confiscated. Chechen law enforcement reportedly carried out Kadyrov’s orders. The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the case.
Chechen authorities also continued to coercively mobilize local residents to fight in Ukraine. In autumn 2024, when discussing the creation of a new Chechen regiment for Ukraine deployment, Kadyrov said that another 84,000 should be “volunteered,” giving an opportunity to “troublemakers” to test “their audacity in the special military operation zone.”
In August, North Caucasus SOS, a rights group supporting LGBT people and other victims of abuses across the region, confirmed that Seda Suleimanova, a young woman who had fled Chechnya in 2023 but was later forcibly returned to her abusive family by Chechen police, died in an “honor killing” by her relatives, with the body secretly buried outside of their village cemetery. Chechen authorities allegedly encouraged the “honor killing.” The police have conducted no effective investigation into these allegations.
Also in August, a court in Shali sentenced Zarema Mussaeva to four additional years in prison for supposedly “disrupting the work of a penitentiary institution.” Mussaeva is already serving a five-year sentence handed down in 2023 on bogus fraud charges in retaliation for her exiled sons’ public opposition to Kadyrov. Her health severely deteriorated in prison.
Migrants and Xenophobia
In 2025, authorities continued their assault on migrants’ rights. In particular, Central Asian migrants faced ethnic profiling, arbitrary arrests, and other harassment by police. They also faced xenophobic attacks, often perpetrated by far-right Russian nationalist groups, which worked together with law enforcement. SOVA Research Center recorded 276 acts of xenophobic violence in 2025.
In April, law enforcement agents raided a sauna and subjected dozens of Kyrgyz visitors to beatings and degrading treatment. In June, police raided a housing project for migrants, kicking and insulting the residents, mainly from Uzbekistan. Later in June, law enforcement killed two Azerbaijani citizens and injured several others during a raid on members of Yekaterinburg’s Azerbaijani community.
Law enforcement regularly carried out punitive raids on mosques, for example, in January 2025 in Surgut, April in the Moscow region, May in Moscow, and in June in Tver. Military officers often accompanied these raids and issued draft summons to the men gathered there for prayers.
In February, a law entered into force establishing a “register of controlled persons,” which legalized extensive surveillance of foreigners without valid identity documents or authorization to stay in Russia, and introducing sweeping restrictions on their rights.
In September, authorities launched an “experiment” to monitor labor migrants in Moscow and the Moscow region. It requires foreign citizens to install an app, which processes their personal data, including device data, photos, videos, and geolocation. The app, similar to the intrusive and deeply flawed “social monitoring” app used in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic, transmits geolocation data to police. If it stops updating, the person is automatically added to the registry of controlled persons, triggering rights-violating restrictions. Besides being a disproportionate invasion of privacy, users complained, the app was often impossible to install, failed to function properly, or transmitted erroneous data due to GPS scrambling.
In April, a ban on enrolling foreign children in public schools without proof of legal status in Russia and Russian language proficiency took effect, creating a systemic, discriminatory barrier to children’s right to education. In September, the Russian education oversight agency said that 87 percent of migrant children who applied were denied enrollment.
A July law expanded the list of crimes triggering revocation of acquired citizenship to include offenses often used in politically motivated prosecutions, such as displays of extremist symbols, calls against state security, and any crime driven by “political hatred.”
Online Censorship, Surveillance, and Privacy
In 2025, authorities increasingly throttled or fully blocked access to social media, messengers, hosting-service providers, content delivery networks, and other services deemed not in compliance with Russia’s internet censorship laws. In August, authorities blocked voice calls through WhatsApp and Telegram messengers and announced plans to fully block WhatsApp in December.
The government further advanced their technological capacity for state censorship and control over internet architecture.
Authorities continued blocking censorship circumvention tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs). In July, authorities adopted legislative amendments to treat the use of VPNs as an aggravating circumstance for committing certain crimes, and introduced fines for “intentional search for extremist content.” In October, law enforcement brought the first known charges under the latter provision.
Authorities regularly carried out mobile internet shutdowns across the country under the guise of protecting public security from attacks by Ukrainian forces.
The government and government-affiliated public figures increasingly promoted Russian messaging and other online services as an alternative to the blocked ones, which are less likely to share user data with the authorities, comply with censorship laws, and promote the state’s agenda.
A July law allowed law enforcement to directly access any database that may contain personal data of certain protected categories, such as witnesses under state protection, police, and security services staff, without independent oversight.