Paul Goble
Staunton, Nov. 23 – Politically motivated prosecutions have spread from only 16 federal subjects a decade ago to all the regions and republics of the Russian Federation and have targetted more than 3000 people, according to OVD-Info, a Russian human rights organization that tracks attacks on the rights and freedoms of the residents of that country.
The organization’s documentation of that can be found at ovd.info/politpressing; and its work in this regard is discussed and generally praised at meduza.io/feature/2023/11/23/skolko-lyudey-v-rossii-presleduyut-po-politicheskim-motivam-po-kakim-statyam-obychno-sudyat-politzaklyuchennyh-a-kakoy-region-samyy-opasnyy-s-tochki-zreniya-repressiy.
In part, this pattern may reflect better reporting: OVD-Info has a larger network of informants across the country than it did; but in the main, it appears to confirm that the Putin regime’s authoritarianism has spread from a relatively small part of the country prior to his return to the presidency to all of Russia now.
The largest number of such prosecutions have occurred in Moscow (625), but far larger per capita rates have occurred elsewhere, including first of all in occupied Crimea (241 cases), Tatarstan (165 cases), and Bashkortostan (117 cases). Elsewhere the numbers of cases are smaller but the rates per capita are as high or higher.
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