12 December 2025 – 3 January 2026
by Anna Karetnikova
Source: Facebook
12 December 2025
Oh, and since the entire opposition is arguing again, I will quietly say, even though I am always for peace, that of all those who do not represent me in PACE (underlined) ANYWHERE, Gennady Gudkov, a dishonest man with whom I’ve had to deal since leaving Russia, especially does not represent me. Well, I had to say that, it’s how it turned out. And now we’ll forget about it. I am for peace…
Source: Facebook
13 December 2025
They’re reporting Maria Kolesnikova is free.
I’m afraid to believe it.
… But it seems to be true. And 121 other political prisoners from Belarus.
Source: Facebook
16 December 2025
It’s always a worrying feeling when you see your fellow human rights activists somewhere on Zoom, for example, and think: damn, won’t they jail you there, in Russia? And then there’s that familiar feeling of bewilderment, but also pride: there are still people there fighting for prisoners’ rights, so maybe all is not lost?
And then, bang, this news: “This morning in Ekaterinburg, law enforcement agencies conducted searches of the homes of bloggers who, under the guise of human rights activities in places of deprivation of liberty, were embezzling grant funds from the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the National Endowment for Democracy, which have been designated as ‘undesirable’ in our country.”
You think: that’s only to be expected… they put up a good fight. Apparently, nothing is possible after all…
And yet Aleksei Sokolov was only recently released from prison. He was accused of displaying the Facebook logo (Facebook is banned), such a monstrous crime. But it seems the detention centre wasn’t to go without Aleksei for long.
Of course, I’m sending all my thoughts of support, strength and freedom to everyone: to Roman Kachanov, Larisa Zakharova, and Aleksei Sokolov! Maybe we can get through this without too much suffering?
But the wording of the accusations is deadly. The are not described as human rights activists and former members of the Public Monitoring Commission. They are called bloggers who ‘were embezzling funds under the guise of human rights activities.’ I remember I, too, probably under the guise of human rights activities, was embezzling… my salary, true, from the state — but what’s the difference in wording?
Oh, and there is this from RIA News: ‘Sverdlovsk civic activist Ekaterina Saprykina asked the investigative authorities to check up on the activities of bloggers.’
Source: Facebook
16 December 2025
16 December 1937 is the birthday of my late mother, Irina Shilova. It seems she passed away only recently, but sometimes it feels such a long time ago … that I would no longer be able to put into words everything that is happening now. That my friends she loved so much are now scattered—some in prison, some far away—and why we allowed all this to happen, especially me… Oh, my Mum would be very disappointed in me. And since I don’t know how to explain all this, I’ll just leave this blossoming bud here for Mum: she loved looking at flowers. And I think Mum would like the unspoken wish I made with this bud.
Source: Facebook
17 December 2025
While all this is happening, in Ekaterinburg the lawyer Roman Kachanov has been remanded in custody for two months. Today, pre-trial conditions will be chosen for Larisa Zakharova. For Aleksei Sokolov, it will be tomorrow.
Update: Larisa Zakharova has also been remanded in custody. Please, if anyone knows Larisa’s date and year of birth, please send it to me in a private message.
Source: Facebook
**
17 December 2025
I’m going to listen now, since I can’t get to Paris. You can find it on this link: https://www.youtube.com/live/gj59iM8YKDI
I once lured Tanya into the Anti-War Club back in the days of the Chechen war, and then she, along with Sergei Davidis and Mikhail Kriger, was one of the founders of the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners, which later grew into the memorial project ‘Political Prisoners. Memorial.’ I highly recommend everyone to listen
Source: Facebook
17 December 2025
We decorated our New Year tree. The last time we did this was in 2022 in Moscow. More precisely, me: Sergei was already in Kazakhstan, and I had ten whole days left in my homeland. But I didn’t know that then.
Holidays are especially difficult here in our little town, when you want to invite guests or go visiting. Of course, we can invite people, and we do! But something tells me no one will come here. Somehow, we’re in an out-of-the-way place here… But come if you can…. Or we can come to you.
Paris isn’t that far away, but no one is expecting us there either. Sergei seems to have come up with an idea: to go to Paris for New Year’s Eve and watch the Eiffel Tower light up. He told me about it and I approved… In the evening, he reads the news: just in case, the lighting of the tower has been canceled for security reasons. Oh well. Instead, all the French people will be watching a concert on TV.
I will refrain from repeating what Sergei said when he heard about this in a mixture of bits of the languages he knows…
But nevertheless, the house is still standing (until we are evicted), the lights are on, you can see into the distance from the window (c), and someone on this day is settling into a remand cell and spending their first night under a sheet on a prison cot. So why complain about fate? We have work to do.
But you’re welcome to come or call. And Seasons’ Greetings to everyone!
Source: Facebook
18 December 2025
The situation with the third human rights activist from the Urals, Aleksei Sokolov, seems to be even worse. Kommersant reports that a charge of treason has been brought against him. He has been remanded in custody for two months.
A year ago, after Aleksei was arrested on an idiotic charge of displaying the Facebook logo, there were voices saying he either had not spoken out against the war or even supported the Special Military Operation, in order to focus on defending the rights of convicts.
And so it turns out he did not support the SMO enough, from the point of view of the Russian authorities. These are times when silent support is not enough. Once you have shown disloyalty, not even to the state as a whole, but to one of its parts, and have not publicly changed your position, you remain an enemy, and therefore a target. That is how I interpret this signal, but perhaps someone else knows better.
Source: Facebook
19 December 2025
I just watched Garry Kasparov’s appearance on Pliushchev. Just one thing caught my attention (and what a legend Kasparov is – at the Solidarity festival, he beat my little boy Seryozha at chess!) But I digress. One of his complaints about Vladimir Kara-Murza is that he ended up in prison and then had to be extricated in a prisoner exchange, and that this was an absolute gift to the Putin regime. Fair enough. The policy of taking hostages and then selling them for profit is a well-trodden path, as we know. What struck me, though, was that amid the controversy, Garry Kimovich overlooked the fact that not only Vladimir Kara-Murza was exchanged, but there were others, too, weren’t there?
Am I to conclude from all this that Garry Kimovich is against prisoner exchanges in general? (Again, we’re all aware of the downsides involved.) Still, hundreds of relatives of political prisoners are waiting with bated breath for more exchanges. And for some of them, it’s the only chance to see their loved ones go free. So it seems for now, anyway.
It’s easy enough to say, Ukraine must win, and the 30 per cent of Pliushchev’s audience who are against the war should leave Russia. But they have nowhere to go, and people in Russia are being locked up EVERY DAY. So, shouldn’t we still be trying to push for prisoner exchanges? It makes one think…
Source: Facebook
25 December 2025
Today Sergei Udaltsov, a man with whom I once organised rallies, was sentenced. However you feel about him, what happened to Udaltsov is both completely absurd and enough to inspire a work of fiction. A dedicated Marxist and leader of the Left Front, which positioned itself as radical yet reasonable, he was detained at protest after protest. I still remember him at the ‘Occupy the Fountain’ on Pushkin Square. There were heaps of short-term jail terms and long hunger strikes, with us all calling for him to be freed. We members of the Public Monitoring Commission would visit him in the special detention centre all the time. Then he was active in the Bolotnaya Square protests. Later still, he was handed a prison sentence for some bogus conspiracy and was doing time in Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where we met again, he a prisoner, and I a human rights activist. Meanwhile, his wife, Anastasia, would collect money in a box at big liberal rallies in support of her husband. She told the media afterwards that these rallies were being funded by Western money, which upset the applecart.
Sergei served his time and was let out, branding his former Bolotnaya comrades as enemies and liberals. He supported the war and organised some (in my opinion) left-field and lacklustre events – traditional ones – to commemorate Stalin’s birthday. He remade himself as needed, but still had to show at least some inclination to protest. Perhaps he thought it would allow him to remain a politician. After all, he had labelled others as paid conspirators. Not a chance! He made a totally innocent call to help the Ufa Marxist circle (they hadn’t even been convicted at that point, only recently they were given 20-year sentences, which was outrageous, but more on that later). And today, for appealing for solidarity with those poor souls, Udaltsov has been given six years. He said he would go on an indefinite hunger strike.
…Meanwhile, his wife, now ex-wife, Anastasia (a native of Ukraine, incidentally), is a State Duma deputy. She replaced the deputy in the boot of whose car a moose’s carcass was found. You may not believe it, but we were even able to vote her in (because this was what Smart Voting told us to do). She seems to be doing well overall and posts pictures of herself posing in various interiors and outfits, including a summer dress for a wedding — did she get [re]married, perhaps? As events unfolded, I thought maybe there was some kind of deal behind all this. I mean, surely the deputy will help out her banged-up hubby? Well, no, as he got six years today. Oh, and what’s more, just as a side note, Sergei’s search and arrest took place the day after their divorce took effect.
His wife serves in the State Duma, and her husband serves in prison. So you think you can predict the future?
We, of course, have recognised Sergei Udaltsov as a political prisoner. Today in court he made the following comment: “What is going on here beggars belief. I’ve been in a state of shock since 11 January 2024 – the strength of emotion may have subsided over the past two years, but it really is a shock to the system”.
Only since then? I’ve been in shock since before then.
Source: Facebook
27 December 2025
I’ve been wondering how much the recent arrests of indigenous activists in Russia were connected to discussions in completely different circles about quotas for indigenous peoples in Russia’s representation in the PACE. In other words, how sensitive and agile the repressive machine is. It reacted like this: hmm, we have designated all of them as terrorists, but we can’t get to them yet, so let’s put them on hold for now, but look: there are other indigenous peoples too! Take a look around the regions: haven’t they all been wiped out yet?
Well, or maybe it’s just a temporary coincidence.
Such criminal prosecutions are usually built in the same way as that of Grigory Melkonyants. Someone was a member or worked for a certain organization, which was once or allegedly part of a certain association, and the association was suddenly designated as terrorist (extremist, undesirable), and therefore that someone can be imprisoned for 5, 10, or 20 years. We do not yet know exactly how many minority activists have been detained. We only know for sure about Daria Egereva and Eduard Baltykov, who are in custody. If anyone knows about the fate of Gennady Shchukin from Krasnoyarsk region, or about other arrests of activists in the last two weeks, we would be grateful for the information.
As far as I know, until now people have not been prosecuted for terrorism offences for belonging to nationalist movements. The exception is Rafael Mamedov, a student from Murmansk who ran the Free Lapland Telegram channel. The 23-year-old also faces up to 20 years in prison. A nice touch: FSB officers forcibly took him to a remand prison from hospital where the young man was recovering after cutting his veins.
As the year draws to a close, the repressive apparatus is ‘cleaning up’ the space, paying slightly less attention to anti-war and anti-Putin posts on the Internet or to luring Russian citizens into the Free Russia Legion in order to focus on ‘all sorts of other things.’ The category of ‘other things’ includes the Ekaterinburg lawyers Kachanov, Zakharov, and Sokolov, and from the past cases they finally brought to a close the trial of the eight ‘Crimean Bridge’ defendants and the three-year-long case of the Ufa Marxists, followed by that of Sergei Udaltsov (in that order, because the first verdict was needed to serve as evidence in the second).
And, in the same “non-anti-war” vein, at the beginning of December in Ulyanovsk, three men were placed under house arrest for organizing and participating in an ‘extremist’ LGBT organization. In such cases, the security forces do not even bother with the appearance of evidence to prove you belonged to something, and that ‘something’ was part of ‘something else.’ Dressed inappropriately given your passport gender? Participated in activities. Invited friends? Organized cells.
That’s pretty much how the year is ending (although I don’t rule out surprises on New Year’s Eve). Well, and in the New Year they’ll be catching villains with renewed vigour, those who wrote something ambiguous on VK or Telegram in 2022… And protecting railway relay cabinets from terrorists.
Source: Facebook
28 December 2025
The story told on Comedy Club about a certain Oleg, who allegedly decided to take revenge on the foolish Khazars (deleted) by calling in live on Dozhd TV, is a cautionary tale with deep philosophical undertones, addressed to Russian television viewers.
This Oleg, who has been in the news over the past week, unfortunately manages to get through to the live broadcast and introduces himself. “Are you already in prison, Oleg?” the host asks him sadly. “No!” Oleg exclaims. “So you’re in a police van?” the host tries to hint (you’ll end up there, you fool! Hang up the phone!) “No!” Oleg insists. “It has nothing to do with prison!” (Really? We’ll figure that out a little later). The host sighs and concludes: “We’ve been listening to Oleg, who will soon be in prison” (which is absolutely true) — but Oleg is not to be deterred. “Now I’m going to donate to you!” (From this moment on, everything is predetermined, just like death from one’s own horse). Everything that could be done has been done.
And here are the articles of the Russian Criminal Code under which Oleg will serve his term in prison (unless, of course, he is a pranker like Vovan and Lexus, but that seems to be a different story).
- Article 284.1 CC RF. Providing or collecting funds or rendering financial services knowingly intended to support the activities of a foreign or international organization designated undesirable in the Russian Federation in accordance with Russian law. Up to six years’ imprisonment with or without deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to ten years.
- Article 275 CC RF. Treason in the form of providing financial, material, technical, consulting, or other assistance to an international or foreign organization or its representatives in activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation – up to life imprisonment.
This was all at first glance, those who look at these things in detail will surely know something else. And later they’ll see what this Oleg is up to, what he writes on VKontakte…
Bursts of sarcastic laughter off-screen serve as a Greek chorus. According to the laws of censorship, the chorus is not allowed to reveal anything that is about to happen, but it also tries to warn the reckless Oleg about the inevitability of fate.
This is the story, told in inevitable riddles, of a little man to whom a black raven inexorably approaches, a bird that has already raised its wing over his absurd fate. A short and bold performance.
Source: Facebook
31 December 2025
Happy New Year. May things become a little easier for all of us. May peace come to Ukraine, may political prisoners be set free. We are not just hoping, we are doing what we can to make this happen. After all, Russia is … our homeland.
Source: Facebook
1 January 2026
I was often asked last year: isn’t it ‘37 yet? No, I’d say, it’s 2025.
Source: Facebook
1 January 2026
I met Evgeny Urlashov in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison, in the special block. He is one of the few people who gave me a task that I couldn’t handle. Damn, that was in 2013…
“Why are you asking me these stupid questions about mattresses and grub! You must tell Putin about my case!”
I, a pathetic member of the Public Monitoring Commission, was completely at a loss. “I… well, I don’t know Putin personally…” I felt very uncomfortable.
The mayor stamped his foot angrily at me, and I found it slightly amusing because his foot was in a prison slipper, a so-called molded plastic pantoleta. “Well, go and get acquainted! And tell him about my case already!”
I squeaked: “Allow me to go and do that” And I left the cell, humiliated, with the oppressive realization that my meagre charisma would definitely not be enough to accomplish the task at hand this time.
When I returned a week later, Mayor Urlashov had already got a task for me that I could manage – to organize a large TV set for his cell (and a couple more) in the special block, which the administration had been afraid to put there and had been holding back – and yes, that was within my power. Forty minutes of mutual arm-twisting over coffee with the chief and the political officer after a ten-hour tour of duty, and the inhabitants of the special block were able to see the unattainable Putin in widescreen. So I never got to meet Putin.
…But really, they stole years and years of his life. I’m glad he’s free. But he’ll never get back what they stole.
Source: Facebook
3 January 2026
Having little understanding of Venezuela and what is happening there, and not knowing how many civilian casualties there were or whether they were caused by the American attack, I nevertheless ask myself a purely hypothetical and somewhat absurd question: What would be the reaction of my readers if, in similar circumstances, Trump were to successfully kidnap the president of Russia and take him out of the country to face charges?
Be careful if suddenly you want to answer while you are still in Russia.
Source: Facebook
Translated by Lindsay Munford and Simon Cosgrove
