In Russia, amid preparations for elections and continuing pressure on independent civic activity, the persecution of politicians and activists is intensifying. The project Veter, which first published this text on its own website, collected stories of people who remain in the country and continue public work despite fines, administrative arrests, and criminal cases.
On October 30, the Leninsky District Court of Perm placed former regional lawmaker Konstantin Okunev in pretrial detention. A day earlier, FSB officers had detained him at Perm airport. Investigators say he administered a Telegram channel that allegedly contained unlawful posts and accuse him of incitement to terrorist activity. In court, Okunev said he did not consider himself guilty and had never wished harm on anyone. Earlier, in 2021, he had already been jailed for five days over alleged involvement in a rally supporting Alexei Navalny; later, the ECHR found that prosecution unlawful and awarded him 5,000 euros in compensation.
Maxim Kruglov, a 38-year-old Yabloko politician and former Moscow City Duma deputy, was arrested in early October in a case over alleged “fake news” about the army. According to investigators, the basis was two three-year-old Telegram posts about Bucha and killed Ukrainian civilians. In 2019, Kruglov, backed by Navalny’s Smart Voting strategy, won a seat in the Moscow parliament and went on to lead the Yabloko faction there. In 2024, he tried to run again, collected about 6,000 signatures, but was denied registration.
Ilshat Nafikov, a 35-year-old Communist Party aide from St. Petersburg, became a defendant in a false bomb-threat case in 2022, but six months later the prosecution was dropped for lack of involvement, and he received an apology and 60,000 rubles in compensation. Still, on September 4, 2025, he was detained again after a protest against a coffee plant in Murino that residents said polluted the air with emissions. A court sentenced him to nine days of administrative arrest.
Altai activist Aruna Arna, who has spent more than 15 years in public advocacy on environmental, development, and political issues, also came under criminal prosecution. In spring 2023, two administrative cases were opened against her for “discrediting” the army over Telegram posts. Later, authorities opened a criminal case accusing her of justifying terrorism. This unfolded against the backdrop of her campaign against local-government reform in the Altai Republic and her criticism of the regional leadership.
“Only after ending up here do you truly begin to value people’s kind words. Of course, the first days were the hardest. I could not think about my children without tears,” Arna wrote from pretrial detention in mid-October.
The article argues that pressure is being applied not only to non-systemic activists but also to members of registered parties, with administrative charges, repeated fines, arrests, and criminal accusations used as the main tools.