Dmitry Peskov said Russia “categorically denies” that it holds political prisoners. FACTUM’s political persecution database listed 6,794 people at the latest count; 2,163 were imprisoned, while 1,404 had been recognized as political prisoners by human rights organizations. This column looks at what those figures mean and at several criminal cases behind them.

Updated: September 30, 2026.

On September 30, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had not discussed with the United States possible sanctions relief in exchange for the release of political prisoners. “We categorically deny the existence of any political prisoners and consider this formulation of the issue absolutely inappropriate,” he told reporters. Vedomosti was among the outlets that reported the statement.

The issue cannot be reduced to terminology. Over the past several years Russia has accumulated a large body of criminal cases in which human rights organizations see a connection between prosecution and political activity, public speech, anti-war views, participation in opposition organizations, religious beliefs or other forms of civic activity. Individual cases can and should be examined on their own evidence and legal merits. But the claim that political prisoners do not exist in Russia at all has to be measured against the cases themselves and against the available data.

What the numbers show

At the time this column was prepared, FACTUM’s political persecution database, based on OVD-Info data, contained 6,794 people. Of them, 2,163 were imprisoned. The database had recorded 454 verdicts in 2026. Separately, 1,404 people had been recognized as political prisoners by human rights organizations, and 872 of them were still behind bars. The full list of recognitions and FACTUM’s explanation of how those statuses are displayed are available on a separate page.

Those figures should not be conflated. Not everyone among the 6,794 people in the broader database is a political prisoner, and not everyone is in a penal colony or pretrial detention center. The total includes convicted people, defendants, people under house arrest, people who are at liberty, people who have left Russia and people who have been placed on wanted lists. FACTUM does not assign political-prisoner status itself. It reports the determinations made by named human rights organizations and identifies the source of each recognition.

Even the narrower category, however, contains 1,404 people recognized as political prisoners. A categorical statement that there are none therefore has to be tested against the substance of those cases.

Eight years over 292.99 rubles in Telegram Stars

On September 23, the Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg sentenced 57-year-old Tyumen resident Mikhail Antonovich to eight years in a strict-regime penal colony on a charge of financing terrorism. The prosecution was based on paid Telegram Stars reactions that he had placed under posts in several channels. Investigators counted 130 Stars with a total value of 292.99 rubles. Eight years was the minimum sentence under the provision applied in his case. FACTUM reported the case in detail in “Yekaterinburg Court Hands Tyumen Man 8 Years for Telegram ‘Stars’”.

The Russian prosecution argued that the channels receiving Antonovich’s paid reactions provided information support to organizations and armed formations designated as terrorist by the Russian authorities. On that basis, the paid reactions were treated as financing terrorism.

The content of the posts matters when assessing the case. Antonovich, for example, sent 22 Telegram Stars worth 41.58 rubles under a Michael Naki post about Telegram privacy settings. Another episode concerned Antonovich’s own message that mobile internet was not working in central Tyumen and that VPN services and Tor were not helping. Investigators argued that information about connectivity problems could be used to Russia’s detriment, although local media had also reported the disruptions. The trial was held behind closed doors.

The Memorial project Support for Political Prisoners recognized Antonovich as a political prisoner and has argued that a terrorism-financing conviction requires proof of direct intent and awareness that the money was being directed specifically toward terrorist activity. OVD-Info also reported the verdict and the circumstances of the case.

The question is not whether a state may investigate genuine financing of terrorist organizations. It plainly may. The question is whether the connection between a specific payment, its purpose, the defendant’s intent and terrorist financing was proved, and whether the punishment imposed was proportionate to the conduct established in court.

Seven years for Nikolai Zyuzev

On September 16, the Supreme Court of the Komi Republic sentenced 70-year-old philosopher Nikolai Zyuzev to seven years in a strict-regime penal colony in a high-treason case. Zyuzev holds a doctorate in philosophy and is a scholar of sociologist Pitirim Sorokin. He studied in graduate school at Moscow State University, earned candidate and doctoral degrees, published books and academic articles, participated in international research projects and worked with archival materials at Harvard.

Russian authorities say Zyuzev’s actions were directed against state security. He entered into a pretrial cooperation agreement, which allowed the court to impose a sentence below the ordinary statutory minimum for high treason.

The proceedings were closed, however, and the public record does not provide enough detail to independently reconstruct the factual basis of the charge. It remains unclear which specific acts investigators treated as high treason, how his academic contacts or other activities were connected to harm to Russia’s security, and what evidence established that connection. FACTUM examined those questions in “Seven Years for Treason: What the Closed Trial of Philosopher Nikolai Zyuzev Left Unanswered”.

Alexei Gorinov

The case against Moscow municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov began after a council meeting in April 2022. The council was discussing a children’s drawing competition. Gorinov said he considered such events inappropriate while a war was under way and children were being killed.

He was then charged with disseminating “knowingly false information” about the Russian Armed Forces. On July 8, 2022, a court sentenced him to a lengthy prison term. A second criminal case was later brought against him, this time on a charge of publicly justifying terrorism. He remains imprisoned. The basic facts of the case and his current status are collected in Alexei Gorinov’s FACTUM profile.

In this case the origin of the initial prosecution is public: a municipal deputy’s statement about the war during an official council meeting. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian law introduced criminal and administrative penalties for a range of public statements about the conduct of the armed forces. Gorinov was among the first people to receive a multi-year prison sentence under that enforcement practice.

Lev Shlosberg

Lev Shlosberg, a Yabloko politician and former member of the Pskov regional legislature, is in custody. His combined sentence is 11 years and one month. His cases involve charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian military, repeat “discrediting” of the armed forces and failure to comply with duties imposed on a person designated a “foreign agent.” One episode concerns a Telegram repost made in February 2022. Memorial’s Support for Political Prisoners project has recognized Shlosberg as a political prisoner. His case record is available in FACTUM’s political persecution database.

Here the political context does not require much reconstruction. The defendant is an active politician; the conduct at issue includes public statements about the war; and the statutes used in the prosecution regulate speech about the armed forces and compliance with the “foreign agent” regime.

Russian authorities are entitled to argue that Shlosberg is being punished only for violations of criminal law. Human rights organizations reach a different conclusion by examining the content of those laws, the circumstances in which they were applied and the conduct that triggered prosecution.

Alexander Kynev

The recent arrest of political scientist Alexander Kynev also deserves close attention. For more than three decades he has studied Russian elections and regional politics. He worked with Yabloko and the Golos movement, collaborated with the Carnegie Moscow Center, taught at the Higher School of Economics, served on expert bodies connected with Russia’s Central Election Commission and published research on Russian parties and elections.

On February 20, 2026, the Justice Ministry designated Kynev a “foreign agent.” In September he was analyzing elections to the State Duma. He was detained on September 24, and the next day Moscow’s Perovsky District Court ordered him held in pretrial detention. His lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov, said FSB officers took part in the detention. Kynev has been charged with attempted large-scale drug distribution and denies the accusation.

Many of the central factual details of the charge have not been made public. Authorities have not publicly identified the substance or its weight, the circumstances in which it was found, an alleged buyer or the conduct that investigators characterize as an attempted sale. Those details may exist in the case file, but they have not been presented publicly. FACTUM has collected the available chronology and evidence in “Political Scientist Alexander Kynev Arrested on a Drug Charge”.

Kynev’s biography alone is not enough to conclude that the case was fabricated. Such a conclusion would require evidence. But the sequence of events warrants scrutiny: a longtime analyst of Russian elections who had criticized the electoral system was designated a “foreign agent” in February, analyzed the parliamentary elections in September and, days later, was jailed on a serious drug charge whose factual basis had barely been disclosed publicly.

What the statistics mean

The structure of the political persecution database shows that cases OVD-Info classifies as politically motivated rarely carry an explicit political label in legal documents. Of the 6,794 people in the database, 2,442 are connected to extremism cases, 1,844 to terrorism cases, 1,385 to anti-war cases, 301 to cases involving supporters of Alexei Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and 244 to cases involving people designated as “foreign agents.” These categories overlap and therefore cannot be added together.

A Criminal Code article, by itself, does not establish whether a prosecution has a political motive. A person can be legitimately prosecuted for terrorism, high treason, extremism or drug trafficking regardless of his or her political views. The reverse is also true: the fact that a charge is formally called terrorism, extremism or high treason does not by itself rule out a political motive.

That is why human rights assessments do not rest on the title of the criminal offense. They examine the circumstances of the case, the connection between the prosecution and political activity or the exercise of basic rights, the character of the evidence, compliance with fair-trial guarantees, selective enforcement and the proportionality of the punishment.

The Kremlin and human rights organizations are therefore applying different approaches. Russian authorities point to the criminal statutes under which people are charged or convicted and reject the political-prisoner designation in these cases. Human rights organizations examine why the case was brought, what the person actually did and how the criminal law was applied.

Calling things by their proper names

The Russian Criminal Code contains no offense called “political activity” and no sentence formally described as imprisonment for opposition views. In each individual judgment, the state can therefore point to a specific criminal offense and argue that the defendant’s political beliefs are irrelevant.

That is precisely why open justice, an independent defense, public access to evidence and the ability to compare enforcement in similar cases matter.

Mikhail Antonovich’s case raises the question of whether eight years in a strict-regime penal colony is proportionate to conduct involving 292.99 rubles, and whether terrorist financing was proved with sufficient evidence of purpose and intent.

Nikolai Zyuzev’s case leaves unanswered, in the public record, which specific acts by a 70-year-old scholar amounted to high treason and why the evidence cannot be independently examined.

In Alexei Gorinov’s case, the source of the prosecution is known: his public statement about the war at a municipal council meeting.

In Lev Shlosberg’s cases, political activity and public statements form part of the factual context of the prosecution itself.

In Alexander Kynev’s case, a serious drug charge has so far been presented publicly largely as a legal formula, with little detail about the underlying facts.

These are different cases. They should not be collapsed into a single explanation, and it would be wrong to claim without evidence that every accusation was fabricated. But it is equally difficult to reconcile a categorical claim that Russia has no political prisoners with a documented body of cases in which human rights organizations have recognized 1,404 people as political prisoners.

Peskov’s statement should therefore be tested neither against the Kremlin’s wording nor against the slogans of its opponents, but against specific criminal cases. FACTUM’s political persecution database allows readers to examine the charges, sentences, custody status, case summaries and human rights recognitions attached to individual people.

Once that is done, the argument becomes more concrete. The question is not whether the Russian government uses the term “political prisoner.” The question is what conduct leads to imprisonment, what evidence the prosecution presents, how open the proceedings are and whether the punishment is proportionate to the conduct proved.

On those measures, the categorical assertion that there are no political prisoners in Russia is difficult to reconcile with the documented record.