They Never Lived to See Freedom.pdf - 2.7 MB

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They Never Lived to See Freedom.pdf

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They Never Lived to See Freedom. A Chronicle of the Deaths of Victims of Political Repression (2022–2026)

Today, October 29, the “Returning the Names” commemoration of victims of political repression is taking place around the world. Sadly, by 2026, mass repression in Russia had ceased to be merely a matter of history and had become a terrifying reality of the present day.

We are publishing a report on victims of political persecution who have died. In this text, we have compiled all cases known to us of the deaths of political prisoners and other victims of politically motivated persecution in places of detention (as well as during searches, under house arrest or shortly after release) from the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine through the end of October 2026.

Main trends and key facts from the report:

◉ Scale of the losses. At least 69 people have died since February 2022 (63 men and 6 women). The death toll peaked in 2024 (26 people). In the first, incomplete ten months of 2026, 16 deaths have already been recorded.

◉ Age range. The victims ranged in age from 18 (abducted Ukrainian teenagers Daniil Dakhov and Pavel Grimak) to 81 (Professor Valery Mitko). Their average age at death was about 51.

◉ Denial of medical care is the leading cause of death. At least 29 people died for medical reasons (due to illness and the denial or delayed provision of medical care); their average age was about 59. Judges and Federal Penitentiary Service staff systematically ignore prisoners’ critical health conditions, dismissing their complaints as “malingering.”

◉ Torture and physical violence. At least 20 people died from beatings, torture or their direct consequences. Of those, 11 were Ukrainian citizens (prisoners of war and abducted civilians), and one more was a Polish citizen abducted by Russian security forces in Ukraine. Residents of the Chechen Republic and defendants in fabricated criminal cases in Russian regions also regularly fall victim to fatal torture.

◉ Alleged “suicides” and the system’s lack of transparency. At least 10 people died as a result of presumed suicides or in similar circumstances. The opacity of the prison system, refusals to open criminal investigations and falsification of the circumstances make it impossible to rule out that some of these people were tortured or murdered.

◉ Unknown causes. The causes of death of eight more people are currently unknown to us: Alexander Perov, Dmitry Polunin, Oleg Pronko, Roman Zarovnyaev and Vladimir Udovika in 2024; Alexander Markov during a prison transfer in 2025; and Rustam Khalikov and Nikolai Popov in 2026.

◉ Hunger strike and deliberate killing. The report separately highlights the death of pianist Pavel Kushnir following a two-month protest hunger strike and the death of Alexei Navalny in a special-regime prison colony, which we consider a deliberate murder.

◉ Institutional responsibility. Responsibility for the deaths of prisoners lies not only with the individual perpetrators (operatives, investigators, judges and prison doctors), but also with the entire judicial, investigative and prison system, as well as Russia’s leadership as a whole.

The review is based on our project’s database and monitoring of repression.

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