By Ekaterina Janashia | 2025-10-23

United Nations (UN) human rights experts are warning of an "alarming escalation" of repression in Russia, saying the Kremlin has turned silencing its own people into official state policy.

The September report details how the government is manufacturing "enemies of the motherland" -- from journalists and novelists to Indigenous activists -- to justify both crackdowns at home and aggression abroad.

The findings, presented to the Human Rights Council by Mariana Katzarova, the UN special rapporteur on Russia, describe a system where torture is widespread, dissent is criminalized, and courts hand down crushing prison sentences for reporting, protest, or even words posted online. At least 50 journalists are already behind bars, and the report warns the number is growing.

Targeting of journalists and activists

Among those jailed are people known personally by Vladimir Sevrinovsky, a Moscow-based journalist, documentary filmmaker and cultural expert on Russia's regions. He said he has faced injustice himself but noted that conditions are far worse outside the capital.

"I have a little advantage -- I live in Moscow, not in the region, where things are much more brutal," Sevrinovsky told Kontur.

"In Bashkortostan, for example, the level of repression is now much higher than in Moscow … the wonderful journalist Olga Komleva from Ufa has now been given a very harsh sentence."

On July 29, a court in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, sentenced Komleva, 46, to 12 years in prison on extremism charges. The case stemmed from her alleged cooperation with the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, which the state outlawed as extremist for exposing corruption. Authorities also accused her of spreading "false information" about Russia's military.

Komleva, a journalist for the independent outlet RusNews, has been in custody since her arrest in March 2024. She has denied the charges and said she left the Anti-Corruption Foundation before it was declared extremist.

Sevrinovsky praised her reporting from Baymak, where she documented protests over the jailing of Indigenous activist Fail Alsynov.

"She shouldered her way into the crowd, moving between the shielded police and the protesters, and she made a long, two-hour film," he said.

'Simply heroic'

The Baymak demonstrations, sparked by Alsynov's four-year prison sentence on charges of inciting interethnic strife, became some of the largest in Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Thousands took to the streets in early 2024, protesting his case as well as long-standing grievances over environmental destruction, including gold mining and the defense of the Kushtau mountain. Police cracked down with mass arrests.

Katzarova said Komleva was punished for reporting on anti-war protests and the conflict in Ukraine. She warned that political detainees like Komleva face systematic abuse in Russia's penal colonies, including denial of medical care, psychological pressure and solitary confinement for speaking out.

The crackdown has also swept up four other journalists tied to Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation -- Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin and Artyom Kriger -- each sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

"What regional journalists do in today's Russia is simply heroic," Sevrinovsky said. "They take far greater risks, and what they see there is far more valuable because they are constantly in the region, know it deeply, and, at the cost of heightened personal risk, capture very important information."

Tools of repression

Katzarova's report says Russian authorities are increasingly using counterterrorism and "fake news" laws to silence dissent, with prosecutions focused on political speech rather than any real public threat.

As an example, novelist Boris Akunin was sentenced in absentia to 14 years on charges of "justifying terrorism" for his anti-war views.

The report also documented 258 cases of torture in 2024–2025, calling the practice "systematic and widespread." It cited the revival of punitive psychiatry, including the case of journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who received a prison term and compulsory psychiatric treatment for her anti-war stance.

On September 29, President Vladimir Putin signed a law withdrawing Russia from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, completing its disengagement from Western bodies that began with its 2022 expulsion from the Council of Europe. The treaty had allowed international monitors to inspect prisons and detention centers.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said the withdrawal would not harm citizens and insisted it remains committed to human rights. But two UN rapporteurs warned the move "raises red flags about what is going on behind bars" in Russian jails.

Widespread abuse

Katzarova's report also documented the involvement of medical personnel in the torture of Ukrainian detainees. Based on accounts from victims and witnesses, it described starvation, electric shocks, rape, sexual violence and killings. According to a May 2025 Associated Press investigation, at least 206 Ukrainian prisoners of war have died in Russian custody, with autopsies of repatriated bodies showing signs of torture.

Beyond political dissent, the report warned of intensified targeting of LGBT people, Indigenous groups, ethnic minorities, migrants and asylum-seekers, as well as what it called the "normalized" gender-based violence against women and girls.

Katzarova urged international action, saying "justice inside Russia is unattainable" and calling for the use of universal jurisdiction to prosecute those responsible for torture and other serious crimes.

She praised the courage of Russian human rights defenders and journalists who continue to work under threat and called for sustained support for those forced into exile.

Sevrinovsky said he hopes their work will matter to future generations.

"Unfortunately, we are all living in a historical time that scholars will undoubtedly be studying later on," he said. "I hope then someone will find and use all our materials, films and articles … and next time a disaster like this could be prevented or at least better prepared for."