Sergei Davidis

19 March – 7 April 2026

by Sergei Davidis

Source: Facebook

19 March 2026

Somehow ongoing affairs have distracted me from offering a public reaction to recent events, so I will briefly address all of it at once.

First, I congratulate the creators of Mr. Nobody Against Putin. 

It did not particularly enchant me, though it was decently done and lively.

When I viewed it, I was struck by a certain staged quality and the excessive focus on Pavel Talankin himself, but those things do not go beyond the framework of what documentary film permits, as Anton Dolin convincingly explains, for example. Not that this matters for judging a work of art. 

Nor did I see anything unethical in the film in the sense of any ‘set-up’ of the people we see in the frame or in the sense of any deception of the viewer.

Nor did I see anything new with respect to content. Somehow everything I saw wholly corresponded to my notion of a school. Of course, the problem may be that I myself graduated from high school in 1986 and this way of following by all the process’s participants of the rules of the game, which, in essence, are rules of a game and nothing substantive, and accepted by most people, is quite familiar to me.

At least, just as Soviet official propaganda didn’t have much effect on me and my classmates, so in the film we don’t see any particular significant successes of official Russian propaganda. 

It’s understandable that the propaganda of the war and the dictatorship in a school is in any case evil and this evil should be exposed, but I agree with Aleksandr Baunov, Anton Dolin, and many others that this film is not for us. It is addressed to those who know nothing at all about Russia. And its festival successes show that it was able to reach its intended audience and draw their attention to Russia’s problems. And this can only be welcomed.

At the same time, I think, as always, that the radicals are wrong. As are those who saw in the film and its success a kind of whitewashing of Russia and Russians, and those who saw there a certain demonization and stigmatization of them. I think that both are exclusively in the eyes of the beholder. 

Second, the awful Remeslo himself is not worth discussing. First, because no clear explanation for his strange behavior was found, and now, because an explanation has been found and turned out to be of no social significance.

Nevertheless, no matter how vile and ineffective Remeslo is, his rather unusual speech itself quite rightly aroused interest not because he and his position are important but because they come out of the agreed-upon picture of the world and could demand its correction. In this sense I find strange the reproaches against the media for the interview with Remeslo and the attacks on the media for not asking him questions that obviously made no sense in the context of the situation that exposed his vile essence. His vile essence is obvious to all and could well have been stated in a voice-over. These reproaches are a manifestation of a broader problem of unfounded demands on the media. The media should not lie and should not blatantly violate ethical norms, but they have no obligation to serve anyone’s interests or meet anyone’s desires. Observations of reality demonstrate that, no matter whose attempts to appoint themselves the moral authority and on this basis cancel everyone who doesn’t participate in canceling someone else, the main blow strikes the people doing the canceling. 

And last. Ilya Yashin has declared his intention to form a political party. I think this initiative can only be welcomed. Of course, implementation of this idea will inevitably run into a mass of various problems. In my opinion, though, the idea itself is a good one. On one hand, in and of itself the clear claim to political agency is important; on the other, the diversity and variety of these kinds of agencies is important. In the context of what is sensible, of course, but for now the problem for us is not too much variety but the opposite.

Conversations about how no one needs this and it will not find demand and you can’t participate in the country’s life from outside it are, first, speculative and, second, in favor of the poor. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but if we don’t try, we definitely can’t count on success.

Source: Facebook

19 March 2026

The day’s main event, of course, is the release of 250 Belarussian political prisoners, among them human rights activists, journalists, and many others.

I congratulate both those who were set free and those who have worried about them all these years!

Source: Facebook

20 March 2026

From a metallurgist and electrician with terrorist charges to a physicist-nuclear engineer and official charged with financing the Ukrainian armed forces

Read about these and other people whom we have designated political prisoners this week, in our survey

Andrei Serezhenko, an electrician from occupied Golaya Pristan in Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, was abducted by Russian law enforcement officers in June 2022. For a year and a half his family knew nothing of his fate. Only in February 2024 was he officially accused of abetting an act of international terrorism and possessing and transporting explosive devices. Serezhenko allegedly participated in a failed attempt on the life of a collaborationist official: he drove the perpetrator to the site of the explosion and then took him back. In May 2025, Serezhenko was sentenced to 17 years of imprisonment. One other person accused in this case, Oleg Pronko, died during the investigation under unknown circumstances.

Aleksandr Kozhedub, like Serezhenko, lived in Golaya Pristan. In August 2023, he was detained. After a month and a half of carousel arrests, he was charged with state treason for wiring about 5000 rubles to the aid of the Ukrainian armed forces. In October 2024, Kozhedub was sentenced to 12 years of strict regime.

Snezhana Yakunina from Energodar in the occupied portion of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast was also charged with state treason for wire transfers totaling about 7000 rubles to Ukrainian volunteers and soldiers. Yakunina was detained in April 2025, and in September was sentenced to 14 years of general regime. 

Also prosecuted for donations to the Ukrainian armed forces was Vladimir Litvinov, who was born in Ukraine but lived in Russian Kaliningrad, where he worked for the oblast government. In August 2025, Litvinov was put under administrative arrest supposedly for hooliganism but was later accused of financing terrorism for wire transfers to the Russian Volunteer Corps.

Ruslan Shadiev, a physicist-nuclear engineer from Sarov in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast is being prosecuted at once under both the article on state treason and the article on financing terrorism. Shadiev allegedly wired crypto currency totaling 1200 rubles to the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Go to Hell project. In January 2025, Shadiev was sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment.

Aleksandr Brataskhin, a metallurgist from Cherepovets in Vologda Oblast, is being prosecuted in a case on justifying terrorism over comments criticizing the war and the Russian regime. For example, he wrote: ‘People, arm yourselves, and let’s drive out United Russia and Putin both! Russia is no more! Let’s preserve what’s left!’ For three comments on VKontakte in October 2025 he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment.

Daniil Zinkovsky from the town of Leningradskaya in Krasnodar Kray was arrested in August 2023. After a month of carousel arrests, he was accused of preparing to commit state treason: he was supposedly planning to join the Russian Volunteer Corps. Law enforcement officers began following Zinkovsky long before his arrest, after he spoke out publicly against the war with Ukraine in September 2022. In April 2024 he was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.

The most unusual in this category is the case of Mark Davydov. Although he was living in occupied Crimea, his prosecution was connected not to the war in Ukraine but to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria. Davydov was arrested in 2019 on the charge that he allegedly helped collect money for its activities and was getting ready to hand his savings over to and join it. In September 2022, Davydov was sentenced to 17 years of penal colony for abetting the financing of terrorism and preparing for its financing, as well as for preparing to participate in an illegal armed group, although the court did not prove he had been planning to join Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. At the moment of Davydov’s arrest, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham was not on the list of terrorist organizations.

– Political Prisoners. Memorial

Source: Facebook

21 March 2026

A lawyer writes that Maria Bontsler might find character references useful.

Source: Facebook

28 March 2026

I had the honor, along with Lesya Matviichuk, to represent the People First campaign in the Netherlands.

Source: Facebook

5 April 2026

I didn’t watch Dud’s interview with Kapustin, nor do I intend to, but I am seeing lots of complaints against Dud in connection with it and I don’t understand them.

Source: Facebook

7 April 2026

Today, our project, Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial, celebrates four years as an independent human rights association.

We have managed to accomplish quite a lot over these years, but unfortunately even more work lies ahead. 

The Russian regime is trying to harm our work in every possible way. The latest attack, connected with the declaration of Memorial as an extremist organization, is under way right now. 

We are going to be adapting our work to the new conditions, bearing in mind safety requirements, and, naturally, we will carry out and expand that work despite all obstacles.

Today our project is four years old.

In this time we have:

— Collected and spent more than 45 million rubles on aid for political prisoners;

— Based on the results of our analysis of criminal cases, justified the inclusion of more than 1300 people on the lists of political prisoners;

— Posted on our website nearly 6000 prisoner profiles that include addresses for letters and ways to help;

— Created a detailed database of contemporary criminal political repressions that today contains more than 5500 names of people imprisoned with indications of political motivation. This is one of the most complete databases of its kind;

— Given more than 500 expert commentaries to Russian and foreign media on political repressions;

— Rendered legal assistance to the investigation in court for 141 people;

— Rendered 87 people legal assistance in connection with the violation of their rights in captivity;

— Rendered humanitarian assistance to 327 people;

— Consulted on legal issues for 48 people; 

— Written more than 15 reports and analyses on political repressions in Russia, which have been cited by both Russian and international experts;

— Organized and participated in public initiatives of support for political prisoners;

— Our project was added to the list of ‘foreign agents’, and the project’s director Sergei Davidis was convicted of ‘justification of terrorism’.

We are going to continue our work as long as there are political repressions and political prisoners in Russia. Thank you for supporting us! 

– Political Prisoners. Memorial

Source: Facebook

Translated by Marian Schwartz