Per Capita, Russians in Far East Fall Victim to Politically Motivated Criminal Cases Far More Often than Those in Other Federal Districts, ‘Memorial’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – The Memorial human rights organization reports that 2.5 per every 100,000 residents of the Russian Far East fell victim to politically motivated criminal cases during the first half of this year, the highest rate per capita of any federal district in the Russian Federation.

            Memorial researchers say that the reason for this is that increases in charges against Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the Far Eastern FD, almost one in four of such political charges involved religious groups whereas in other federal districts, the share was only seven percent (semnasem.org/news/2026/07/08/dalnij-vostok-vnov-stal-liderom-po-chislu-politicheski-motivirovannyh-ugolovnyh-del-na-dushu-naseleniya).

            They note that this is not the first time that the Far Eastern FD has led the Russian Federation in terms of such charges. The same thing was true throughout 2025 and thus continues a trend in which Russian officials far from Moscow are increasingly likely to bring such charges confident that they won’t be held to account by outside coverage. 

            Because this trend is greatest in the Far East and because it involves a religious group rather than an overtly political one, this aspect of repression in Putin’s Russia receives far less attention than it deserves given how few journalists or diplomats visit the region or even track what is going on there on a regular basis.