Human rights in Russia

• 1. Legal Framework And International Obligations

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  On the 16th of March 2022, Russia ceased to be a member state of the Council of Europe. This date marked the end of over two decades where Russian citizens could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg after exhausting their domestic legal options. The 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation explicitly states that international law takes precedence over national federal legislation under Chapter 1, Article 15. Despite this constitutional mandate, the government has increasingly ignored rulings from intergovernmental bodies since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. A law enacted in December 2015 empowered the Constitutional Court of Russia to determine whether resolutions from these international courts should be enforced or disregarded within the country. Before this shift, the number of complaints against Russia had risen steadily since 2002. By June 2007, 22.5% of all pending cases before the European Court were complaints filed by Russian citizens. In 2006 alone, there were 151 admissible applications against Russia out of 1,634 total applications for all countries combined. The Soviet Union ratified the international covenants on civil and political rights in 1973 and economic, social, and cultural rights in 1975. Although a Soviet lawyer helped draft the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Communist bloc abstained from signing it as a whole. Russia ratified the European Convention on Human Rights with reservations in the late 1990s, creating a legal bridge between Moscow and Strasbourg that would eventually be severed.

• 2. Systemic Torture And Police Impunity

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  In July 2025, the State Duma passed legislation officially restoring the Federal Security Service authority to operate its own detention centers. This move follows years of documented abuse where police officers used specific torture methods like the Elephant Method, which involves beating a victim wearing a gas mask with cut airflow until they suffocate. Another technique known as the Supermarket Method places a plastic bag over the head while delivering electric shocks to sensitive areas including genitals, nose, and ears. Former serviceman Andrei Sychev lost both legs and his genitals after being subjected to the Television method, forcing him to stand in a mid-squat holding stools until gangrene set in due to restricted blood flow. In 2021, a massive cache of videos published by NGO Gulagu.net showed thousands of hours of first-hand recordings of torture involving rape and sexual assault using sticks. These videos covered the period from 2015 to 2020 and were exfiltrated by former inmate Sergei Savelyev who managed the prison video recording system. Russian authorities fired some officials implicated in these tapes but placed Savelyev on their wanted list for illegally accessing sensitive information. Doctors and nurses sometimes participate directly in torturing suspects or employ trusted inmates to beat prisoners in what is called the Pressing Room or Press Hut. Those trustees receive special privileges within the penal system for inflicting pain on others. Human rights groups estimate that about 11,000 inmates die annually in Russia's prisons, mostly due to overcrowding, disease, and lack of medical care. The rate of acquittals for law enforcement officers accused of violent abuse ending in death is almost 4%, compared to an overall court acquittal rate of only 0.7 percent. When convictions do occur against police, nearly half result in suspended sentences or fines rather than imprisonment.

• 3. Targeted Killings Of Dissidents

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  In 1998, human rights advocate Galina Starovoitova was shot dead at the entrance of her apartment building in St. Petersburg. Five years later, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated in Moscow after publishing critical reports on Chechnya. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko died from polonium poisoning following a British inquiry that concluded President Vladimir Putin had probably approved his murder. Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin in 2015, while journalist Nikolay Andrushchenko was beaten to death in 2017. Current and former US and UK intelligence agents told BuzzFeed News in 2017 that they believe Russian assassins linked to government orders could be responsible for fourteen deaths on British soil dismissed as not suspicious by local police. Former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky believes these murders show the FSB has returned to political assassination practices used during the Soviet era's Thirteenth Department. The list of killed journalists includes Cynthia Elbaum, Vladimir Zhitarenko, Nina Yefimova, Jochen Piest, Farkhad Kerimov, Natalya Alyakina, Shamkhan Kagirov, Viktor Pimenov, Nadezhda Chaikova, Supian Ependiyev, Ramzan Mezhidov, Shamil Gigayev, Vladimir Yatsina, Aleksandr Yefremov, Roddy Scott, Paul Klebnikov, Magomedzagid Varisov, Natalya Estemirova, and Anna Politkovskaya. Since 1992, forty-seven journalists have been killed in Russia for their professional activity according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Thirty died during President Boris Yeltsin's reign while the rest were killed under Vladimir Putin. In 2006 alone there were nine deaths, sixty-nine assaults, and twelve attacks on editorial offices recorded by the Glasnost Defence Foundation.

• 4. Criminalization Of Political Opposition

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  On the 4th of March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill introducing prison sentences of up to fifteen years for publishing knowingly false information about Russian armed forces and operations. By December 2022, more than four thousand people had been prosecuted under these fake news laws connected to the invasion of Ukraine. In early 2024, Ksenia Karelina was arrested in Yekaterinburg and charged with treason for sending fifty-one dollars and eighty cents to Razom, a New York City-based nonprofit organization providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Her trial began on the 20th of June 2024 and she admitted guilt on the 7th of August before being sentenced to twelve years in prison. On the 17th of January 2025, three lawyers from Alexei Navalny's opposition party, Igor Sergunin, Alexei Lipster, and Vadim Kabez, were found guilty and sentenced to five years total for helping Navalny execute illegal activities outside jail. According to Memorial Human Rights Center, there were three hundred eighty political prisoners in Russia as of late 2023, including sixty-three individuals prosecuted directly or indirectly for political activities. Seventy-eight of those prisoners are residents of Crimea, representing over twenty percent of the total list. Since May 2016, the number of political prisoners has risen sharply from eighty-nine to at least one hundred seventeen by May 2017. Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was arrested in Simferopol, Crimea, on the 10th of May 2014 and sentenced to twenty years in prison for alleged terrorist activities before being released in a prisoner swap on the 7th of September 2019. Server Mustafayev, founder of Crimean Solidarity, was imprisoned in May 2018 and charged with membership in a banned terrorist organization. Amnesty International called for his immediate release alongside Front Line Defenders.

• 5. Erosion Of Media Freedom

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  On the 1st of March 2022, Russian authorities blocked access to Echo of Moscow and TV Rain, the country's last independent television station, claiming they spread deliberately false information about military personnel actions. By February 2023, journalist Maria Ponomarenko received six years in prison for publishing details about the Mariupol theatre airstrike. On the 5th of September 2022, Ivan Safranov was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison under treason charges related to reporting on fighter jet sales to Egypt. More than one thousand journalists have fled Russia since February 2022 according to Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia director Hugh Williamson. The censorship apparatus Roskomnadzor ordered media organizations to delete stories describing the 2022 invasion as an assault or declaration of war. In July 2019, journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was sentenced after criticizing government repressive policies during a radio broadcast about a suicide bomber attack on an FSB building in Arkhangelsk. She was listed as a terrorist and extremist in September 2019 with her assets frozen by authorities. Over sixteen thousand people including many human rights defenders were detained among thousands who protested peacefully against the invasion. Journalists Yevgenia Albats claimed that television channel directors are invited every Thursday into Deputy Administration Head Vladislav Surkov's office to learn what news should be presented. Many journalists receive enormous salaries from pro-Kremlin outlets while independent voices face criminal prosecution. As of December 2022, over four thousand individuals faced prosecution under fake news laws connected to Ukraine coverage.

• 6. Repression Of Civil Society And NGOs

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  In October 2006, activities of many foreign non-governmental organizations were suspended using new registration requirements passed by the lower house of parliament. The bill required local branches of international groups to re-register as Russian entities subject to stricter financial and legal restrictions. By September 2016, one hundred forty-four NGOs appeared on the Register of Foreign Agents, including some of the oldest and most respected domestic organizations. In March 2016, Russia announced the closure of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow following years of pressure. The Federal Law of the 10th of January 2006 changed rules affecting NGO registration and operation, leading to closures like the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. A detailed report by Olga Gnezdilova showed small volunteer organizations were disproportionately affected by new procedures while larger funded groups remained untouched. Government authorities can brand NGOs as undesirable organizations to fine and shut them down, with members facing imprisonment. In 2015, several NGOs dissolved after being registered as foreign agents under the 2012 law or shut down under the 2015 undesirable organizations legislation. The year 2017 saw intensified crackdowns on religious freedom with Jehovah's Witnesses facing persecution for unclear reasons. Over fifteen years ago, Vladimir Lukin noted that registered religious organizations had grown to twenty-two thousand one hundred forty-four in 2005 but many now fail to achieve legal recognition.

• 7. Ethnic Minorities And Regional Conflicts

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  During the Second Chechen War lasting from September 1999 to 2005, numerous instances of summary execution and forced disappearance of civilians occurred according to Memorial reports. As of March 2007, over two thousand seven hundred abducted citizens needed tracing efforts led by Chechen ombudsman Nurdi Nukhazhiyev. In 2008 alone there were forty-two alleged abductions while the first four months of 2009 saw fifty-eight such cases. Of those fifty-eight persons found in early 2009, forty-five were released, two were found dead, four remained missing, and seven were located in police detention units. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov rules through despotism and repression with reports of gay concentration camps where homosexuals are tortured and executed. In September 2017, government human rights representative Tatyana Moskalkova met with Chechen authorities to discuss a list of thirty-one people recently extrajudicially killed in the republic. The situation in the North Caucasus remains particularly disturbing with high levels of violence against migrants and foreigners originating from that region. In 2006, some three hundred thousand people were fined for immigration violations in Moscow alone while numbers were many times higher according to Civil Assistance. Five point five thousand Yazidis who moved to Krasnodar Krai before Soviet disintegration faced legal status issues with only one thousand granted citizenship. Fifteen thousand Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai lost all legal status since 1991 despite being victims of Stalin deportation and pogroms in Uzbekistan.