The Gulagu.net human rights project, founded by Vladimir Osechkin, has announced it is suspending operations. The decision was reported on the project's Telegram channel.
Osechkin explained the decision by citing "new realities and risks" for employees both inside Russia and abroad. According to him, the project is under pressure and its accounts are being blocked without justification. Osechkin also mentioned harassment from "good Russians," and in the "emigrated" community, he claimed, security services and "useful idiots" are causing infighting and bullying. He noted that "the most effective opponents of the Kremlin can be killed."
Osechkin promised to sum up the results of the "15-year thankless and dangerous mission" in August and September: to tell the history of the project and name those who helped and those who hindered.
Gulagu.net had been operating since 2011, covering torture in Russian prisons and helping prisoners. The project gained wide recognition in 2021 after publishing the "Saveliev archive" — video recordings of torture, abuse, and rape of inmates at the Saratov prison hospital OTB-1. Osechkin has not lived in Russia since 2015.
In 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated him a "foreign agent." In February 2025, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow sentenced Osechkin in absentia to eight years in prison on charges of spreading "fakes" about the army. He is also under arrest in absentia on fraud charges. In October 2025, four people were detained in France on suspicion of plotting to kill Osechkin in Biarritz.
Osechkin's biography and human rights work contain a number of controversial episodes, detailed by the outlet Proekt. As it reported, Osechkin claimed credit for evacuations from Russia of military and security personnel that, according to the evacuees themselves, were carried out by other people; offered paid "packages" of assistance with asylum; and clashed with former associates and informants over money. Almost always, Osechkin explained the conflicts as the result of opponents "working for the security services," without providing verifiable evidence. Proekt also pointed out inconsistencies in the story of an alleged assassination attempt in 2022: part of Osechkin's claims were not supported by documents, and French authorities at the time found no convincing evidence of an attack.