Rights Groups in Russia

26 July 2025

Source: Facebook

STATEMENT FROM THE PEACE, PROGRESS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS INITIATIVE GROUP

On 1 July 2025, the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office approved a decision deeming the activities of the Peace, Progress, and Human Rights civic internet movement (‘The civic [public, democratic] movement Peace, Progress, and Human Rights’) undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation.

On 22 July 2025, the Russian Ministry of Justice added the organisation to the list of foreign and international organisations whose activities have been deemed undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation, and on 24 July 2025, this information was published on the Justice Ministry website.

Who does one have to be to deem the words ‘PEACE, PROGRESS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS’ undesirable in the Russian Federation? This may be the Putin regime’s biggest self-revelation in recent times. It means the regime’s end cannot be long in coming. 

This decision, albeit legally absurd, entails very real and serious risks for everyone who continues to live and act in Russia. 

Peace, Progress, and Human Rights appeared the first week after Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian territory in February 2022, uniting people who had come out against the war. It was always an informal association, it had no office, budget, or staff, and it never served the interests of anything other than peace. 

But today, under the new conditions, a fabricated or provocative accusation of participation in our movement could be grounds for administrative or even criminal prosecution in Russia. And this absolutely cannot be allowed.

Therefore, we have taken the difficult but sole possible, in these circumstances, decision: Peace, Progress, and Human Rights is disbandng itself and ceasing its activities.

We are doing this not under the pressure of fear but as a sign of respect for those who are fighting and surviving inside the country, passionate, honest, and free people who remain in Russia.

We retain our values. Our work continues, in new forms, taking into account the new realities in which the main objective remains to stop the war. It is all the more to be expected that in the near future there will be a ceasefire or a cessation of military initiatives for negotiations. 

We are going to continue our work uniting people to build a democratic Russia. 

The movement toward Peace, progress, and human rights cannot be stopped.

In the name of the initiative group

(signed Lev Ponomarev) 

25 July 2025

P.S. Please repost.

Translated by Marian Schwartz