The report, cited by The Insider and Agentstvo, recorded 1,393 new defendants in political cases between January and September, up from 1,339 in the same period a year earlier — a rise of 4%.

Behind that apparent stability lies a shift in the structure of prosecutions. Cases over statements fell by 22%, from 487 to 380, while cases related to restrictions on freedom of association rose by 50%, from 219 to 328.

The decline mainly affected articles investigated by the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee. According to Ekho, cases over the "discrediting" of the army fell by 69% and those over the "rehabilitation of Nazism" by 46%.

For articles investigated by the Federal Security Service (FSB), there was no decline. Defendants accused of inciting extremism rose by 26%, and those accused of inciting activity against state security by 13%. The number of people prosecuted for justifying or promoting terrorism was almost unchanged: 237, against 240 a year earlier.

On that basis, the report's authors call the FSB not only the main operator of repression but also its "catalyst." The Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial project told Agentstvo that the security service's activity is probably linked to its growing influence and the need to demonstrate its role. The report's authors stress that this is a hypothesis based on statistical trends.

The rise in prosecutions under the "freedom of association" category is largely driven by individual campaigns. The number of defendants among supporters of Alexei Navalny grew from 69 to 143, with almost all the cases tied to accusations of financing extremism over donations to the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Those prosecuted as Jehovah's Witnesses rose to 91 from 45 a year earlier, and people the authorities link to the "citizens of the USSR" movement to 29 from 13.

The number of new defendants under the article on financing extremist activity rose from 77 to 167, an increase of 117%. According to Agentstvo, about 60% of those prosecuted as Jehovah's Witnesses live in the Siberian or Far Eastern federal districts.

The number of defendants linked to terrorist organizations and communities rose by 25%, from 210 to 263. Part of the increase came from cases against alleged supporters of Vyacheslav Maltsev's Artpodgotovka movement, where the number of defendants grew from 20 to 44.

At the same time, cases are becoming harsher. The share of cases containing at least one charge under an especially grave article rose from 29% to 34%. The article on justifying and promoting terrorism now accounts for more than 60% of prosecutions over statements, and in more than 80% of cases where it is applied, defendants are deprived of their liberty. The earlier growth in cases over treason, terrorist attacks and sabotage has almost stopped.

In the occupied territories of Ukraine, 307 new politically motivated prosecutions were recorded in the first nine months, against 338 a year earlier. The intensity of repression there remains higher than in Russia: 4.6 cases per 100,000 residents a year in Crimea and Sevastopol, and 9.1 in the occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, against 1.2 inside Russia. The number of prosecutions over statements in the occupied territories rose by 17%.

The number of new criminal prosecutions of Ukrainian service members fell from 484 to 330. According to Memorial, the reason is the completion of a mass campaign against captured Ukrainian Armed Forces service members.

Rights defenders describe the reasons for the simultaneous intensification of several unrelated campaigns as unclear. They suggest it may reflect a shift in the security services' attention toward presumed "organized" structures, but do not rule out the coincidence of several separate trends.