In December 2021, Russia's supreme court liquidated 'Memorial', a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the country's oldest human rights organization that had begun its work back in the late 1980s.

It is now clear that the liquidation of 'Memorial' along with other sorts of pressure on civil society in 2021 was a part of the run-up to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Below you will find a more detailed account of what happened.

'Memorial' first experienced pressure in the Caucasus. In late November 2007, an armed group of people in masks abducted the chairman of the Board of 'Memorial' HRC, Oleg Orlov, along with a group of journalists from the hotel in Nazran and threatened to kill them. Later they drove the hostages outside the city, dragged them from the car and left them in a field. They made their way to the nearest police department on their own. In 2018 the Nazran office of 'Memorial' was torched and burnt down.

In July 2009, Natalya Estemirova, a 'Memorial' member in Grozny, was killed. Following the incident, Ramzan Kadyrov had been suing Orlov for several years as the human rights activist insisted that Kadyrov was to share the blame for the murder. In January 2018, drugs were planted on Oyub Titiev, a former school coach and the head of the Chechen office of the 'Memorial' HRC. He spent a year and a half in prison. The members of 'Memorial' in Dagestan also became targets of violent attacks and surveillance, their car was set on fire.

In 2014, 'Memorial' Human Rights Centre was declared a foreign agent. One year later, the 'International Memorial' faced the same designation. In 2019, both organizations began to receive fines for alleged violations of the confusing labeling rules related to the «foreign agents» law. The fines quickly reached multimillion amounts. The Ingush department of the Federal Security Service was particularly active in complaining about the lack of labeling, as the region’s security services were annoyed by Memorials exposure of criminal proceedings against participants of the protests against the land exchanges between Ingushetia and Chechnya.

The trial against Yuri Dmitriev, a researcher of Stalinist repressions from Petrozavodsk and head of the Karelian office of the 'Memorial' society, received wider public attention. The Karelian authorities did not like the fact that Dmitriev was gathering information about the burial places of the persons executed in the region. In December 2016, he was arrested and accused of allegedly making pornographic pictures of his foster daughter. In April 2018, Dmitriev had been acquitted by the court, however, that decision was revised later, resulting in a 15-years prison sentence for him.

After the annexation of Crimea, Memorial’s events in Moscow commemorating victims of political repressions were frequently attacked by pro-government provocateurs, who remained unpunished. The «foreign agent» sign painted by an unknown person on the wall of the Memorial’s office became one of the symbols of the authorities' pressure on Russian NGOs.

'Memorial' provided infrastructural support to several human rights initiatives, including OVD-Info. Moreover, as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the oldest human rights organization in Russia, 'Memorial' was and still remains the main symbol of the struggle for civil rights. Its liquidation along with the massive campaign against independent media and public initiatives, labeling them as «foreign agents» and «undesirable organizations», the ban on the Anti-Corruption Foundation structures, and political repressions were necessary steps to suppress civil society, paving the way for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In November 2021, the public prosecutor’s office demanded the liquidation of 'Memorial' and 'International Memorial'. Both organizations were accused of systematic violation of the «foreign agent» legislation also mentioning the justification of terrorism and extremism. An employee of the Moscow 'Memorial', Bakhrom Khamroev, who had been accused of «justifying» terrorism and currently remains in pretrial detention, was sentenced in May 2023 to 14 years in a strict regime colony. During his case investigation, authorities conducted a series of searches of the Memorials office, leaving several inscriptions with the letter Z on them at the beginning of the war.

The legal entities of the Human Rights Center and the International 'Memorial' were liquidated at the beginning of the military invasion of Ukraine. In autumn of 2022 one of two 'Memorial’s Moscow offices was taken from them. In spring 2023, a criminal case was initiated under the article of rehabilitation of Nazism, as several collaborators were mistakenly included in the multimillion lists of victims of Soviet political repressions. The apartments of Memorial employees were searched, and security forces also ransacked the Moscow office of the organization during the search.

In the spring of 2023, a criminal case was initiated after the liquidation of the organization, it was due to the fact that the archive of ‘Memorial’s Perm branch office was sent to Moscow.

Searches in the case were conducted by local human rights defenders and lawyers. One of the suspects, the chairman of the «Center of Historical Memory» Alexander Chernyshov was taken into custody.

After the liquidation of the Human Rights Center and the ‘International Memorial’, their members and supporters established the ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Center, which continues to engage in human rights advocacy in Russia, despite having no legal entity status. It is headed by Oleg Orlov and Sergei Davidis. In spring 2023, a criminal case was brought to court against Oleg Orlov for alleged defamation of the army based on the publication of a link to his own interview.

The organization conducts monitoring of human rights and freedoms in Russia, provides support to victims of human rights violations, offers legal assistance related to mobilization and conscription, carries out human rights campaigns, and provides legal consultations for migrants and refugees.

Small projects that are unable to accept donations directly seek assistance from larger nonprofit organizations whose charters and values align with their directions and values. We followed this approach in 2013.

The ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Center used to be a key partner of OVD-Info. Without the infrastructure support from Memorial, we would not have been able to establish collaboration with lawyers and provide assistance to detainees and defendants. Together with Memorial, we launched the most far-reaching campaign of submitting complaints to the European Court of Human Rights. Each of the 1,500 complaints we filed would have been impossible without cooperation with the Human Rights Center.

With the center’s assistance, we were also able to launch a donation collection. Without this collaboration, we would not have been able to enter into agreements with payment service providers, and our donors would not have been able to help us in defending detainees.