Short answers, pulled from the story.
The SOVA Center for Information and Analysis was established in October 2002. Members of the Moscow Helsinki Group joined forces with researchers from the Panorama research center to create this organization.
Galina Kozhevnikova served as deputy director at the SOVA Center until her death in March 2011. Alexander Verkhsky became its director when the organization began operations.
The Moscow City Court ordered the liquidation of the SOVA Center in April 2023 because officials claimed the organization carried out activities throughout Russia despite only being registered in Moscow. This decision occurred during a broader crackdown on human rights organizations following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
After the Ministry of Justice added the SOVA Center to the foreign agents list in December 2016, funding from Western sources became legally problematic and international partnerships faced barriers. Operations encountered increased scrutiny and administrative hurdles that hampered daily research activities while the organization continued publishing reports through its website and print channels.
Year of hatred statistics showed 500 injured and 44 killed by racial violence according to RFE/RL reporting. These figures document incidents tracked under the Racism and Xenophobia monitoring project covering neo-Nazi attacks and xenophobic vandalism.