Trends: political persecution in numbers
How the human rights projects' figures change: how many people are behind bars, under which articles and in which regions they are prosecuted. Only figures the projects published, each with its source. Updated automatically with every news run; the history was rebuilt from monthly snapshots of their sites in the web archive.
Pulse
Chart
Choose what to show and the period. Hover over a dot or tap it to see the date and number.
Each line is one group of people behind bars, counted by its own human rights project. It shows by how many percent there are more (above zero) or fewer (below zero) people behind bars than at the start of the chosen period. Example: “Russia +265%” means Memorial counted 505 political prisoners in October 2022 and counts 1,843 now — 3.6 times as many.
- Russia. Political prisoners in Russia, according to Memorial: ▲ +266% (26 October 2022: 505 → 1849)
- Anti-war. Behind bars in anti-war cases, according to OVD-Info: ▲ +5% (19 July 2025: 331 → 348)
- Crimea. Political prisoners from Crimea, according to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center: ▲ +148% (27 December 2022: 155 → 385)
- Belarus. Political prisoners in Belarus, according to Viasna: ▼ -11% (22 January 2022: 989 → 879)
26 October 2022 → 12 October 2026: 505 → 1849, ▲ +1344 (+266%)
19 July 2025 → 7 October 2026: 331 → 348, ▲ +17 (+5%)
27 December 2022 → 7 October 2026: 155 → 385, ▲ +230 (+148%)
22 January 2022 → 30 September 2026: 989 → 879, ▼ -110 (-11%)
Different projects count different people: Russia, Crimea, Belarus, anti-war cases. So the numbers are never added up or averaged; only how fast each grows or falls is compared.
Under which articles people are prosecuted
People in anti-war criminal cases by article, according to OVD-Info. One person can face several articles, so the total is larger than the number of people.
| Article | People | over a year |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 207.3: military “fakes” | 491 | +67 |
| Art. 205.2: justifying terrorism | 324 | +50 |
| Art. 280.3: “discrediting” the army | 276 | +20 |
| Art. 214: vandalism | 105 | +2 |
| Art. 280: calls for extremism | 86 | +2 |
| Art. 354.1: “rehabilitating Nazism” | 62 | +9 |
| Art. 280.4: calls against state security | 51 | +9 |
| Art. 205: terrorist act | 39 | -1 |
| Art. 282.1: extremist community | 37 | -3 |
| Art. 207: false terror report | 29 | 0 |
| Art. 282: inciting hatred | 25 | -2 |
| Art. 205.4: terrorist group | 25 | +23 |
| Art. 318: violence against an official | 24 | 0 |
| Art. 278: seizing power | 23 | 0 |
| Art. 330.1: evading the “foreign agent” law | 18 | +3 |
The first 15 of 67 are shown. All of them are in the chart above and in the downloadable table.
Where people are prosecuted
| Region | People | over a year |
|---|---|---|
| Moscow | 213 | +11 |
| Saint Petersburg | 104 | +6 |
| Sverdlovsk Oblast | 46 | +6 |
| Krasnodar Krai | 43 | +5 |
| Moscow Oblast | 39 | +5 |
| Tatarstan | 35 | +2 |
| Crimea (occupied) | 33 | 0 |
| Krasnoyarsk Krai | 26 | 0 |
| Nizhny Novgorod Oblast | 23 | +3 |
| Rostov Oblast | 23 | +3 |
| Primorsky Krai | 22 | -1 |
| Khabarovsk Krai | 22 | +2 |
| Arkhangelsk Oblast | 21 | +1 |
| Voronezh Oblast | 21 | +2 |
| Kemerovo Oblast | 21 | +3 |
The first 15 of 87 are shown. All of them are in the chart above and in the downloadable table.
Memorial's lists
| List | People | over a year |
|---|---|---|
| Other victims of political repression | 3145 | — |
| Prisoners of war | 623 | — |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 533 | — |
| Hizb ut-Tahrir cases | 236 | — |
Events
- 16 September 2026 After a US delegation's visit, 25 political prisoners were freed and taken to Lithuania
- 4 August 2026 Law 284-ФЗ: On temporary restrictive measures against persons who are outside the Russian Federation and evade serving a sentence
- 17 July 2026 Law 172-З: On amending laws on the activities of the State Control Committee bodies
- 26 June 2026 Law 215-ФЗ: On amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation (foreign agent control, social advertising, bank information)
- 10 June 2026 Law 168-ФЗ: On amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation
- 15 April 2026 Law 138-З: On amending the codes on administrative liability
- 1 April 2026 Memorial rebuilt its lists by category: figures before April 2026 are not comparable with the new ones
- 19 March 2026 According to Viasna, 250 political prisoners were pardoned
- 20 February 2026 Law 38-ФЗ: On amendments to Article 104.1 of the Criminal Code and to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation
- 20 February 2026 Law 33-ФЗ: On amendments to Articles 46 and 68 of the Federal Law 'On Communications'
- 29 December 2025 Law 537-ФЗ: On amendments to Articles 73 and 81 of the Penal Enforcement Code of the Russian Federation
- 29 December 2025 Law 534-ФЗ: On amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
- 15 October 2025 Law 378-ФЗ: On amendments to Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
- 31 July 2025 Law 281-ФЗ: On amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences and to the Federal Law 'On amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences'
- 23 July 2025 Law 257-ФЗ: On amendments to Articles 9 and 30 of the Law 'On the State Border of the Russian Federation' and to the Federal Law 'On the Procedure for Exit from and Entry into the Russian Federation'
- 1 May 2025 OVD-Info revised its anti-war case dataset: earlier figures are not comparable
- 21 April 2025 Law 101-ФЗ: On amending Article 247 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation
- 21 April 2025 Law 90-ФЗ: On amendments to the Criminal Code and to Article 31 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation
Registers month by month
How many “foreign agents” and “undesirable” organisations are on the Ministry of Justice registers at the end of each month, per the Inoteka database (an OVD-Info project), and how the number changed over the month. The change is new entries minus removals. No names are shown.
| Month | “Foreign agents” | “Undesirables” |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 1275 | 393 |
Who counts what
Each project has its own rules on whom to count, so the figures of different projects are never added up or compared directly. The projects count only the cases they know of, so the real number of people may be higher.
| Project | Whom it counts |
|---|---|
| Memorial Political Prisoners Support | People the project has recognised as political prisoners under PACE Resolution 1900 (2012): prosecuted solely for exercising civil rights, for their beliefs or for belonging to a group, or with serious breaches of the law for a political motive. People who used violence against a person or called for violence on grounds of race, religion or ethnicity are not counted. The figure is those currently held. The project's rules |
| OVD-Info (anti-war criminal cases) | Anti-war criminal cases only, not all political ones. Counted are people deprived of liberty: in pre-trial detention, penal colonies or compulsory psychiatric treatment. All defendants in such cases are counted separately. The project revised its dataset in May 2025; earlier figures are not comparable. The project's rules |
| Crimean Tatar Resource Center (Crimea) | Crimean residents the centre counts as political prisoners: the sum of two parts of its chart — serving a sentence in a penal colony and held in pre-trial detention (we added them up, within one source). The centre's full list covers political prisoners and people prosecuted in criminal cases during the occupation. The project's rules |
| Viasna Human Rights Centre (Belarus) | People Viasna has recognised as political prisoners in Belarus. Besides them, human rights defenders know of more than 10,000 people charged in political criminal cases since 2020; Viasna says this is far from everyone who has been persecuted. The project's rules |
Data and method
Every point of every chart with its date and source link (a web archive snapshot or the project's page). Free to reuse with credit to the project that collected the data.
Memorial Political Prisoners Support: Part of the rise in 2025–2026 is because Memorial added Ukrainian citizens and prisoners of war prosecuted in Russia to its lists.
OVD-Info (anti-war criminal cases): The line starts in July 2025: OVD-Info revised its dataset in May 2025, and earlier figures are not comparable.
Crimean Tatar Resource Center (Crimea): The sum of two parts of the centre's chart: in a penal colony and in pre-trial detention.
Viasna Human Rights Centre (Belarus): The sharp drop in March 2026: according to Viasna, 250 people were pardoned on 19 March.