Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said that the group held a meeting with its regional partners and concluded that they did not intend to register as “foreign agents.”

She added that some organizations could alter this decision, but in that case the Moscow Helsinki Group “would not direct its anger at those who fell apart, but at those who were broken apart.” “Where is the Soviet government that tried to break us in the ’70s?” asked the former Soviet dissident. “And we’re still here. The repression is just tightening up.”

Golos director Lilia Shibanova said that her organization is prepared for the coming persecution and intends to argue the measure in court – up to the Constitutional Court, if necessary.

“We are organizing a public campaign in order to show people what our position is and what kind of work we do,” she said.

According to For Human Rights director Lev Ponomarev, it’s necessary to “warn all non-commercial organizations in Russia about the danger of registering under the new law.” He explained that following the new measures would entail having to turn down funding from international foundations, and that Russian businesses are “too frightened” to work with such organizations.

He also noted that even North Caucasian organizations, which are in a particularly difficult position since they are constricted by the federal government on one hand and radicals on the other, are refusing to register as agents.

“We need to remember that human rights organizations are a part of the protest movement and we need to stick clearly to this position,” Ponomarev said.

Valery Boshchev, a member of the Social Partnership Foundation, believes that the government’s actions towards human rights advocates constitute hysteria, and compared the “foreign agent” designation to the Nazi law requiring Jews to wear yellow stars. “We’re going to put banners up everywhere, announcing: ‘We aren’t swindlers or thieves, just foreign agents. We don’t take bribes and don’t steal money,'” said foundation director Igor Chestin.

The all-Russian small and medium business organization Opora Russia also intends to take on the new designation, but along with the intent of holding an information campaign to tilt public opinion in their favor.

The new NGO law was signed by President Vladimir Putin on July 21. The approximately one thousand organizations that would qualify as “foreign agents” mostly do work in the spheres of education, charity, and human rights. The label is designated for organizations that receive foreign funding and also “do political work” inside Russia, which is defined to include “influencing public opinion.”

A separate, additional measure was passed during its first reading in the Russian State Duma on September 11 to establish a one million ruble fine (about 32,350 USD) for agencies that refuse to properly register.

Experts have already noted numerous inconsistences and inaccuracies in the law and have asked for a number of terms to be more clearly defined. There is wide agreement that the measure is being used as an instrument of political repression.

RFE/RL: How important has USAID funding been to your organization?

Lyudmila Alekseyeva: It’s not [just] about our organization. It’s about the human rights sphere in [Russia]. I think it really helped.

In 1997, USAID issued a large grant for us to monitor the human rights situation in Russia. Of course, the Moscow Helsinki Group could not conduct work of this scale on its own and it worked together with human rights organizations from 80 different regions. Each of these collected material and compiled reports on the situation. We then did reports on the basis of this material.

We of course taught them how to work. This three-year grant helped lay the ground for monitoring work in our country.”

RFE/RL: What impact will the cessation of USAID funding have in general in Russia?

Alekseyeva: Of course it will have very sad consequences. It will reduce the effectiveness of human rights organizations. But I think that the cessation of the work of USAID is entirely logical after the law on NGOs came into force requiring social organizations financed from abroad to register themselves as foreign agents.

If we decline to do this and if organizations like us decline to do this, then [the authorities] will still stop our activates and won’t allow us to make use of their bank accounts. If we agree to register [as foreign agents], we also won’t be able to [to work effectively] because a certain section of the population will stop trusting us because the authorities have created a psychological understanding that everything from abroad is hostile and aimed at Russia’s demise.

Even worse, the Kremlin will probably issue an order to bureaucrats telling them not to cooperate with organizations that have registered themselves as foreign agents.

RFE/RL: In what ways will the Moscow Helsinki Group suffer specifically from the cessation of USAID funding?

Alekseyeva: We will remain without funding because we don’t receive Russian financing. The state won’t finance us because we defend citizens whose rights are violated by Russian bureaucrats. Our state won’t fund that kind of organization. Business here won’t finance us either because every businessman understands that if he finances an organization that is not useful to the authorities, then he puts his own business under threat.

We don’t have any other sources of financing apart from abroad. It will seriously reduce the efficiency of our work. We won’t be able to continue, for instance, our educational projects that we’ve had for many years.

RFE/RL: So how will you get around this problem in practice?

Alekseyeva: The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 during the Soviet period, when of course there was no financing whatsoever either from abroad or from Russia. It received its first grant only in 1993, when it was already an internationally renowned organization.

We will lose the efficiency of our work. We will return to the way we worked in the Soviet Union. Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, human rights workers find themselves once again in the same position.

[We’ll get around it by] volunteering. Back [in Soviet times], we distributed our documents on human rights violations through samizdat. Now it is much easier than it was back then.

Information will come to us — we can find out things through the Internet and people approach us directly via telephone or online. We will put out material on citizens’ human rights violations.

RFE/RL: Why do you think the Russian authorities have made this move now?

Alekseyeva: Because now a serious attack is being carried out on all the rights of citizens — on their voting rights as well as their right to expression and on the right to unite. All of these rights are guaranteed by our constitution, but the authorities have already long forgotten about its existence.

Long time human rights advocate Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who heads the organization, told Interfax that it will refuse all foreign funding starting on the day that the law goes into effect. Instead, it will attempt to survive on donations – a dim proposition.

“I don’t think that we’re going to collect much,” Alexeyeva said. “Poor people aren’t accustomed to donating money to non-commercial organizations, and rich people are afraid that they might lose their businesses.”

“We received our first grant in 1993, when we were a respected organization known worldwide. We worked without money then, and we’ll work without money now,” she added.

The new law on NGOs was passed by the Russian State Duma on Friday, and now only needs approval from President Vladimir Putin, who has expressed strong support. Once it goes into effect, NGOs that receive money from abroad will be subject to a number of measures that will make it more difficult for them to function. Organizations that accept such funding will be subject to audits every year, whereas ones that don’t will only be audited every three years. NGOs with international funding will also have to include a phrase identifying themselves as “foreign agents” in all of their announcements, publications, and other media.

Outrage from NGOs and Russian civil society has a whole has been unanimous in decrying the measure as recalling the tone of the Cold War and evoking an image of foreign-funded NGOs as spies.

Update 06/01/11: Number of detainees in Moscow updated; note of Toronoto rally added.

Russian opposition activists held rallies in defense of free assembly in dozens of cities across the country on Tuesday in the latest iteration of the Strategy 31 campaign. As usual, dozens of demonstrators were arrested in cities where local authorities refused to grant permission for the rallies.

In Moscow, an estimated 60 people were detained at an unsanctioned rally on Triumfalnaya Square, including, as has become customary, Other Russia party leader and rally co-organizer Eduard Limonov, Solidarity co-leader Ilya Yashin, and Left Front leaders Sergei Udaltsov and Konstantin Kosyakin. According to photojournalist Ilya Varlamov, it was very difficult to estimate the number of attendants, but it was likely no more than 300.

In a break from recent tradition, Limonov’s Strategy 31 rally was the only one held in Moscow on Tuesday. Leading Russian human rights advocate and former Strategy 31 co-organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who for the past several months has successfully received official approval to hold her own Strategy 31 rallies, has chosen to organize different demonstrations on different days of the month.

The first to arrive on Triumfalnaya Square were Yashin, Udaltsov and Kosyakin, for whom Strategy 31 rallies usually with their detentions by police. This time was no different, as the three were arrested before they even had a chance to speak to clamoring television reporters – OMON riot police forced their way through a group of journalists to reach the opposition leaders. Similarly, Limonov was arrested as soon as he climbed out of his car.

Another traditional participant of the Strategy 31 rallies, Boris Nemtsov, was this time in Nizhny Novgorod, where activists held their own rally in defense of free assembly. Nemtsov, who came to the rally accompanied by his mother, signed several copies of his report “Putin. Results” for those present. Local police made no attempts to detain him.

“Recently, everyone has argued so much that it’s unclear how many people were coming and what they were going to do,” a rallier on Triumfalnaya Square told Gazeta.ru. Protesters did seem less prepared than usual – no flags or posters were seen in the crowd, and only a handful of people had badges with the number 31 pinned to their shirts. At the same time, organizers say that a demand for free and fair elections has officially been added to the Strategy 31 campaign.

Because Triumfalnaya Square itself continues to be blocked off for construction, ralliers were forced to gather along the bordering sidewalks – until police set upon them from both sides. Many were brutally pushed around; one woman cried out into the crowd, “they have no wives, that’s why they grope us!”

Cries of “freedom!” and “shame!” also sounded from the crowd, but police had almost entirely cleared the square of oppositionists half an hour after the rally had begun.

On the other side of the square, a small group of environmental activists calling for the defense of the Khimki Forest and representatives of a group called the Free Radicals tried to hold a small march, but were literally thrown to the ground by police after only 10 meters. Police then began to carry off the demonstrators; Sergei Konstantinov, head of the Free Radicals, howled at the top of his lungs until police brought him out of the view of journalists.

Police figures cite 26 detainees altogether on Triumfalnaya Square Tuesday night, while rally organizers put the number at 60. As usual, rally leaders are being charged with organizing an unsanctioned demonstration. They face up to 15 days of administrative arrest.

Strategy 31 rallies were also held in dozens of other Russian cities, some with arrests. In St. Petersburg, approximately 100 demonstrators were detained, including at least one minor, at two unsanctioned demonstrations. A heavy police and separate “monitoring” presence was noted at a rally in Omsk, and protesters were forced to hold solitary pickets in Blagoveshchensk after local authorities refused to sanction a larger demonstration – on the basis that 500 visiting Chinese children were scheduled to play in the square.

Rallies in solidarity were also held in New York City, Toronto, London and Rome.

Article compiled from reports by Gazeta.ru and Kasparov.ru.

Update 04/01/11: Information added about protests at Dvortsovaya Square and in Ryazan.

Opposition rallies were held throughout Russia on Thursday as thousands of activists and human rights advocates continued to support the Strategy 31 campaign in defense of free assembly.

In Moscow, two separate rallies were held per recent tradition. Between 300 and 1000 people joined Strategy 31 co-leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva for a government-sanctioned rally at Pushkin Square, where the longtime rights advocate spoke alongside fellow advocate Lev Ponomarev, environmental activist Yevgeniya Chirikova, and others.

Moscow city police estimated the crowd at 150 ralliers and 150 journalists.

Only one person appears to have been arrested at the rally. Someone dressed as a pigeon was taken away after rally organizers told police it could be a possible act of provocation.

Further up the street at Triumfalnaya Square, Strategy 31 founder and Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov attempted to hold his own, unsanctioned rally. According to Kasparov.ru, government officials turned down Limonov’s application to hold the rally on the basis that a pro-Kremlin youth group had already been given permission to hold a rally in support of blood drives, dubbed “Donor Day,” at the same place and time. However, the publication noted that no such activists were seen on Thursday at the square.

Police blocked off Triumfalnaya early in the day and did not allow ralliers to congregate on the square in general. “They’ve begun to kick everyone out. Standing here is prohibited!” photojournalist Ilya Varlamov wrote on Twitter from Triumfalnaya Square at 5:32 pm, half an hour before the rally was scheduled to begin.

Limonov was arrested immediately upon arrival. “They say I shouted a slogan: ‘respect the constitution of the Russian Federation,'” Limonov told reporters from a police station. “I don’t know since when that became a violation of the law.” Co-organizer Konstantin Kosyakin was also arrested.

Police periodically pushed ralliers out of the square and eventually towards the metro while arresting dozens of others. An estimated 36-50 people were arrested altogether.

Solidarity activist Dmitri Monakhov, who had apparently gone to buy a hotdog, was detained while on line at a Stardogs stand.

During the rally, several unknown young people managed to unfurl banners reading “Hooray! Nutcases, go! Strategy 32” on buildings high above the square but were subsequently arrested.

Around 7:00 pm, about 50 protesters began to march down Tverskaya Ulitsa towards the Kremlin, blocking traffic in the process. Police arrested several of the marchers, five of whom were reportedly beaten severely.

One beaten activist, Dmitri Putenikhin, is currently being held for 48 hours and has been issued a summons from a military enlistment office on the basis of his “prior offenses.” However, human rights advocate Andrei Babushkin told Kasparov.ru that the summons was counterfeit.

According to oppositionist Oleg Kozlovsky, activist Sergei Konstantinov was taken away from a police station in an ambulance due to wounds from police.

An activist detained in the Presnenskoe police station reported by Twitter that police were confiscating the cellphones of detainees.

Presidential human rights advisor Mikhail Fedotov told Interfax that he saw no problems with how police treated Strategy 31 participants. “Everything that I saw on Triumfalnaya Square was organized entirely civilly. They acted very carefully. I saw how several young people who decided to hop around on the scaffolding with a banner were taken down and brought to a bus by the hand. Precisely by the hand,” he said.

Many more people were arrested at two unsanctioned Strategy 31 rallies in St. Petersburg.

By various estimates, between 1000-2000 people began marching from Gostiny Dvor along Nevsky Prospekt at 6:00 pm, shouting “it’s our city, “Russia for the political prisoners,” “freedom,” and “Petersburg without Matviyenko,” referring to Governor Valentina Matviyenko.

The marchers initially walked along the sidewalk, but later spilled into the street. They were blocked by police after about 300-400 meters, at which point officers began arresting marchers. According to local Solidarity leader Olga Kurnosova, about 200 people were detained.

Just before 7:00 pm, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov announced to the crowd that the rally was over and attempted to leave on a trolleybus. However, police blocked the bus and dragged Nemtsov out, arresting both him and fellow oppositionist Ilya Yashin.

Earlier in the day, Nemtsov had presented his newly printed report “Putin. Corruption” at a press conference in St. Petersburg. The 40-page document is drawn from open source material and concludes that “corruption in Russia has ceased to be a problem and has become a system.”

Oleg Vorotnikhov of the art activist group Voina was arrested and severely beaten while in detention. Police have reportedly taken away his young son Kasper and are threatening to take away his parental rights altogether. Fellow Voina activists Leonid Gegen and Ira Putilova were also detained.

Other detainees included two journalists from Moscow, a journalist and cameraperson from Georgia’s Channel One, and a Swedish woman who does not understand Russian.

At least one person was taken away from a police station in an ambulance.

Approximately 200 people took part in a second unsanctioned Strategy 31 rally at Dvortsovaya Square, including members of the liberal Yabloko party and human rights advocates. Organizers say the rally was calm and encountered no police interference.

Other Strategy 31 rallies were held throughout Russia’s regions, including in Vladivostok, Saratov, Kurgan, Ulan-Ude, Penza, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Kirov, Ryazan, and others.

At least 25 people were detained at an unsanctioned rally in Nizhny Novgorod. Activists were arrested immediately upon reaching the meeting place; several were beaten by police.

A rally in Rostov-on-Don was only successful after activists managed to obtain a court order forcing the local government to sanction it. All previous attempts to hold Strategy 31 events in the city had been blocked.

According to Kasparov.ru, authorities in Rostov-on-Don nevertheless attempted to hinder the rally by arresting its various organizers for “hooliganism.” Boris Batiy was sentenced to 3 days in jail and only released on the eve of the rally, Other Russia leader Grigory Elizarov was arrested for 7 days and will not be released until April 2, and local Left Front leader Vladislav Ryazantsev was forcibly placed in a psychiatric ward on March 30, despite having no history of psychological problems.

Approximately 100 people came out to the first-ever Strategy 31 rally in Volgograd. Police observed the event, filming and taking pictures from the sidelines. Participants spoke out against plans by the City Duma to get rid of direct mayoral elections.

Activists from Solidarity and other organizations held solitary pickets in Kirov since their application to hold a Strategy 31 rally was denied by the city government.

About 60 people came to a protest in Ryazan, where organizers spoke about censorship over the local media by Governor Oleg Kovalev that prevents them from informing the public about opposition demonstrations.

As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports:

Moscow city authorities today officially approved a planned rally by a group of human rights and opposition activists in support of freedom of assembly, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.

Authorities gave the green light to the March 31 rally — organized by activists including Moscow Helsinki Group Chairwomen Lyudmila Alekseyeva — days after banning a similar protest planned for the same day.

Alekseyeva said today that her group’s rally will be held on Moscow’s Pushkin Square, not on Triumph Square, as it was in the past. Alekseyeva said city officials refused to permit the activists to march through the streets after the demonstration.

Eduard Limonov, a leader of the Other Russia opposition group, applied last week to the mayor’s office for permission to hold a large-scale Strategy 31 gathering on March 31 on Triumph Square. But city authorities rejected that application on March 18.

Limonov said that he and his supporters will gather on Triumph Square despite the ban and march from there to Red Square.

Limonov launched the Strategy 31 campaign in 2009. The movement holds protests on the last day of months with 31 days to commemorate Article 31 of the Russian Constitution that guarantees freedom of assembly.

Other opposition groups and rights activists later joined the campaign.

Limonov and Alekseyeva split in October after Alekseyeva agreed to the Moscow authorities’ request to limit the number of demonstrators at the protests to 1,000. Limonov accused her of collaborating with government officials.

Authorities in St. Petersburg have refused permission for a March 31 rally there.

Moscow Helsinki Group leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva and a group of other human rights advocates told Interfax they had decided to change the format of the rally. “We’re changing the place that we’re going to hold the rally. We think that there will be more participants at a rally on Pushkin Square,” Alexeyeva said.

The longtime rights advocate said one of the reasons for changing the location was the construction barrier erected around Triumfalnaya Square that the city authorities are refusing to take down.

“In addition, we don’t want for there to be any confrontation,” she said, likely referring to the unsanctioned Strategy 31 rallies that have been lead on the same square for the past several months by Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov.

Limonov says he still plans to hold his own version of the rally on Triumfalnaya Square on March 31, despite the break between organizers and regardless of whether the government sanctions it or not.

Until October 2010, Strategy 31 rallies in Moscow were organized by Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin, and Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov. For more than a year, the city refused to sanction the rallies and instead proposed alternative locations that would have isolated the protests from public view. The group split apart after Alexeyeva reached an agreement with city authorities to obtain sanction for a rally on Triumfalnaya with a limit of 800 participants. Limonov and Kosyakin insisted that no such limits should be imposed, and since then dual rallies have been held on the square on the 31st of each date – one sanctioned and one not.

Negotiations mediated in part by Memorial rights center head Oleg Orlov between the two groups earlier this month came to nought, Orlov told Interfax on Tuesday. “The negotiations are over. We regret that both sides turned out to be unprepared to find a rational compromise in the name of shared interests,” he said. “There’s too much disagreement and too much distrust.”

Oleg Orlov, head of the Memorial human rights center, said on Friday that a group of civil activists will serve as mediators during confidential negotiations over possibly holding the next Strategy 31 rally, set for March 31 on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square, jointly between oppositionists and human rights activists.

Orlov did not specify precisely who would be taking part in the talks, but said the results “will be made public.”

Until October 2010, Strategy 31 rallies in Moscow were organized by Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin, and Other Russia party leader Eduard Limonov. For more than a year, the city refused to sanction the rallies and instead proposed alternative locations that would have isolated the protests from public view. The group split apart after Alexeyeva reached an agreement with city authorities to obtain sanction for a rally on Triumfalnaya with a limit of 800 participants. Limonov and Kosyakin insisted that no such limits should be imposed, and since then dual rallies have been held on the square on the 31st of each date – one sanctioned and one not.

Limonov was pessimistic about the negotiations. “We’re probably going to take part, talk a bit, have a look, but I don’t have faith that it will be successful,” he told Kasparov.ru.

In his words, the split between organizers separated those willing to compromise with the government from those who were not. Therefore, negotiations between the two groups will not lead to any result, he said.

A group of prominent Russian human rights advocates have penned a letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on the subject, asking him to take immediate action to put an end to the widespread use of torture in Russia’s detention facilities.

To the President of the Russian Federation
D.A. Medvedev

Message from members of public hearings dedicated to the problem of torture within law enforcement agencies and the penitentiary system

Respected Dmitri Anatolevich!

The prevalence of torture, physical and psychological, that happens in our country during both inquiries and investigations and also during detention has taken on a scale characteristic of a totalitarian society.

Medieval in nature, torture is used far and wide to obtain self-incriminating statements and statements incriminating others as well as for morally suppressing prisoners. Regardless of the changes in law and all reforms in law enforcement agencies, the practice of torture has been preserved and is even expanding.

We consider the current situation to be absolutely intolerable and feel that it demands joint action from both the state and civil society.

We are pinning our hopes on you, since it is precisely you who has repeatedly proclaimed that observing the principle of the supremacy of law is important and is the main guarantor of constitutional human rights and freedoms in our country.

We call upon you to issue a legislative initiative to change the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation so that it would preserve the testimony of accused persons given during preliminary investigations only in the case that it is later confirmed by the defendant in court. This would render the use of torture and forced testimony during inquiries and investigations pointless.

In addition, we call upon you to initiate changes to strip prison administrations of any motivation to use unlawful pressure against people in detention. With this goal in mind, limits on the actions of penal system operational staff should be introduced into the Penal Code of the Russian Federation. They should not have the authority to engage in illegal activities that are committed by persons outside of the given place of detention or which go beyond the punishment that the prisoner has been sentenced to. In this way, operatives will only work to prevent and put a stop to violations of the law that are planned or committed in these places of detention.

We call upon you to create a joint public and state commission to investigate incidents of torture and cruel and degrading treatment.

Such a commission should be created with the participation of representatives of state agencies and also the Presidential Council on the Development of Society and Human Rights, the Public Chamber of the RF, the Human Rights Ombudsman of the RF, a specialized committee of the State Duma of the RF, and specialized human rights organizations.

We members of the organizational committee for public hearings dedicated to the problem of torture in law enforcement agencies and the penitentiary system also feel it is very important to take part in the work of such a commission.

We are certain that, without your immediate interference, the problem of the expansion of the use of torture will definitively destroy the prestige of Russian justice and will undermind the faith of the Russian people in the law.

Hearing Organizational Committee:

L.M. Alexeyeva, representative of the Moscow Helsinki Group, representative of the head of the foundation In Defense of the Rights of Prisoners
V.V. Borshchev, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group
S.A. Kovalev, president of the Institute of Human Rights
L.A. Ponomarev, leader of For Human Rights
S.V. Belyak, lawyer
D.N. Dmitriev, lawyer

February 21, 2011
A.D. Sakharov Museum & Public Center

In a resolution issued on February 17, European deputies expressed concern over the guilty sentence in the second case against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, and called upon the Russian government to do everything necessary to establish a judicial system that corresponds with the promises of Russia’s president to create just and transparent courts. The resolution referred to opposition activists, including Solidarity co-leader Boris Nemtsov, who were sentenced to jail after participating in a sanctioned rally in Moscow.

“Several judicial processes and lawsuits of the past several years have cast doubt upon the independence and impartiality of judicial institutions in the Russian Federation,” reads the document.

The deputies also said Russia must respect human rights and the supremacy of law in the North Caucasus.

Russia was called upon to solve the murders of numerous Russian journalists and human rights activists and bring their perpetrators to justice. The deputies cited such victims as Natalya Estemirova, Andrei Kulagin, Zamera Sadulaeva, Alik Dzhabrailov, Maksharip Aushev, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova and Anna Politkovskaya. The resolution also noted the situation with the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow pretrial detention facility.

“It’s a very good, very concrete resolution that shows the European Parliament knows what’s happening in Russia.” Moscow Helsinki Group leader Lyudmila Alexeyeva told Kasparov.ru. “It’s impossible to enumerate all of our problems, but the ones that are included in the resolution are significant.”

According to Yevgeny Ikhlov of the Movement for Human Rights, the resolution shows that Western Europe sees Russia exactly the same way Russia’s liberal opposition does. “This was clear before, thanks to diplomatic correspondence published on Wikileaks, but now they’ve said it officially,” he said.

In contrast to previous resolutions, this one is complex and is dedicated to the complete collapse of the “Medvedev thaw,” said Ikhlov. “Western Europe feels that, after three years of Dmitri Medvedev’s rule, the country still has no rights, is mafia-like, and the exact same persecution of innocent and political opponents that was happening under Putinism is still going on. There hasn’t been any thaw, all of it has been talk. It’s not, of course, Belarus, but it’s next on the list. In terms of a lack of democracy, Russia takes second place for Europe,” he concluded.