OVD-Info: stop political persecutions in Russia

Dear friend,

Since the beginning of 2026, our work has changed dramatically and become much more difficult. The Russian state continues to impose discriminatory statuses on OVD-Info, blocking access to our most important services and cutting us off from donors. Nevertheless, we have not stopped working.

Russia declared us "extremists"

This June, we found ourselves on Russia’s list of "terrorists and extremists."

We are neither extremists nor terrorists, no more than the hundreds of other organizations and people in Russia who have recently received this stigma simply for refusing to stay silent.

We had long expected something like this and began preparing in advance. We stopped accepting donations from Russian cards (although this was for technical reasons) and reduced our presence inside the country. We now have no staff lawyers, defense attorneys or volunteers based in Russia.

But we continue to work. We still provide consultations through our Telegram bot, and we keep publishing and updating our legal guides. Our focus is on education, so that more people can protect themselves from repression. We are also fighting to be removed from the Kremlin’s blacklist. Although the chances are slim, and everyone has grown used to the Russian state’s unlawful decisions, we are not prepared to accept this.

All of this, however, makes our work harder and more expensive. This status renders us "toxic" for many people in Russia, including our supporters, lawyers, and activists. They are not just resources for us, but vital pillars of our work and a source of support that many are now frightened to express publicly.

More on security

One of our key principles is never to present an unsafe action as safe. Sometimes it may seem that we are scaring people more than necessary, but it’s our job to warn you about the risks — all the more so because the Russian state’s repression is not limited to Russian citizens.

Since June 4, 2026, it has become unsafe for people in Russia to interact with OVD-Info. Any interactions before that date were and remain safe. It is also still legal to read OVD-Info, subscribe to our social media channels, and receive our newsletter.

Here’s what has changed under Russian law:

• a donation to our organization may now be treated by the Russian authorities as financing of extremist activity;
• a public call for others to support us may be treated as involving them in extremist activity;
• volunteering, working for us, or sharing our materials may be treated as participation in extremist activity.

If you are outside Russia and do not plan to travel there, nothing changes for you: your support carries no legal risk, and it is more vital now than ever. If you are planning to visit Russia, it is important to take the necessary precautions when crossing the border.

The “extremism” designation comes on top of an already difficult financial year. In November 2025, payments services stripped us of the ability to accept donations from more than 12,000 supporters who used Russian bank cards.

Because collecting donations in rubles is now effectively closed to us, our ability to keep working (collecting data, publishing legal guides, running the hotline, and supporting political prisoners through safe channels) depends more than ever on donors from outside Russia.

Our work: the first half of 2026 in numbers

The first half of 2026 clearly splits into two periods: relatively normal operations until early June, followed by sharply restricted conditions in the final weeks of the quarter. The figures below cover all six months, so most reflect a strong first quarter alongside a second quarter that changed abruptly on June 4.

Direct assistance

• Our helpline on Telegram was available to about 159,000 people at the end of June. It received more enquiries after the “extremism” designation: 3,009 in the second quarter versus 2,091 in the first. People kept turning to us for help even as other channels were closing.
• At the end of June, our human rights defenders and lawyers were handling 99 criminal cases involving 108 defendants. After the status was announced, we had to end our cooperation with lawyers, attorneys, and activists in Russia overnight, in such a way that they could continue working on cases without our involvement.

Support for political prisoners

• Through our online service Vestochka, some 1,500 people sent around 3,600 letters to political prisoners in Russia in the first half of 2026. We had to suspend this service in June, but relaunched it in October for international users (in English).
• Requests for care packages for detainees fell from more than 100 a month at the start of the year to a handful by June. We were forced to halt this program completely due to the “extremism” designation and loss of staff. 

Public campaigns

Through the petition service Dyatel and partner campaigns, our supporters continued to put pressure on the Russian authorities, mostly during the period before June 4:

• In the first two months of the second quarter alone (April–May), supporters sent 7,081 appeals as part of our campaigns, more than in the entire first quarter. These included a petition for the release of imprisoned mothers with minor children and a petition against so-called carousel arrests. The authorities officially responded to the latter on the very day OVD-Info was declared “extremist.”
• The total for the first six months of 2026 adds up to about 9,500 appeals from 8,000 participants. All Dyatel campaigns had to be suspended after June 4.

Financial engagement

In the first half of 2026, we raised €1.53 million across all channels. This includes:

• €440,000 donated using international cards, the equivalent of 49% of our annual target; 
• 10.8 million in donations from Russia (44% of our target) made through the independent Zaodno platform, which remains one of the safer ways for people inside the country to give support.
• Transactions fell by 14% between the first and second quarter (from 20,024 to 17,081), entirely due to donations made using Russian cards, which we stopped accepting altogether in June.

Reach

• Our Instagram audience grew by 13,000 followers in the second quarter, reaching almost 200,000 in total, with 14 million views on the platform from March to June. By early July, the number of followers was still growing slightly, even after the “extremism” designation. Our team believes that the content we provide is more important to people than the label attached to our organization.
• Media mentions in April–July fell by about 20% compared to the same period last year. The team attributes this primarily to the pause in news, campaigns, and fundraising after June 4, combined with the usual summer lull, rather than to a drop in interest.

Our work now

Legal education

Under these new conditions, legal education has become one of our main priorities. Our goal is to help people minimize the risks of political persecution. To this end, we have started publishing far more instructions and guides than before, and we are already seeing a strong response. At the end of August, we updated the OVD-Info database of instructions, giving it a search function and a new design.

Helpline consultations

After halting direct cooperation with lawyers and attorneys in Russia, we shifted to online legal aid. People now contact us more often — not only about ongoing  political persecution but also to assess their risks and take precautions. When risks have already materialized, we provide legal consultations or redirect people to specialized human rights organizations that can offer help.

We plan to keep developing our legal consultation services to include guidance on criminal cases, helping people prepare for misdemeanor trials,and, where necessary, preparing documents for applicants to submit to courts and government authorities.

We’ve also expanded our expertise to offer advice on more than just legal matters. In August, we ran a digital security consultation where people could ask our experts any questions about protecting accounts and devices. This hotline received more than 400 enquiries in a single day.

Despite our "extremist" status, the number of people contacting our helpline has not fallen. It is especially important to us to know that we can still help, and that you still have someone to turn to.

Work with data on political persecution

We’ve spent many years documenting and analyzing cases of political persecution in Russia. Our findings are compiled in a single database, turning the constant stream of news about repression into knowledge and providing trustworthy information to lawyers, journalists, international organizations, researchers, and the persecuted themselves. After the “extremism” designation, however, our data team lost highly experienced analysts who knew these cases inside out. 

This pushed us to overhaul how we work with data, and we’ve already implemented changes successfully.. We also updated our repression database and added new tools that make it easier to work with the data. 

Direct assistance to political prisoners

We were forced to end direct cooperation with people in Russia so as not to expose political prisoners, lawyers, attorneys, and volunteers to increased risk of criminal prosecution. We halted legal aid to around 100 defendants in criminal cases, and shut down the humanitarian aid project Byuro peredach and the Dyatel petition platform. And, of course, we turned off all ruble fundraising on the Zaodno platform.

However, one of our products has survived. The Vestochka service for sending letters to political prisoners is fully operational for international users, in English. For users: in Russia, it now serves as a directory of political prisoners.

Thank you

We are continuing to reinvent ourselves across all our areas of work. This means strengthening the types of support people need most, expanding our work with data, broadening the expertise available through our helpline, and producing a wider range of legal guides. We are experimenting with new formats, keeping a close eye on developments  in Russia, and we have no intention of stopping.

Thanks to your support, people facing political persecution were able to access free legal aid, and political prisoners could stay in touch with the outside world through letters. We drew attention to people and stories that receive little coverage, and helped those who needed support most.

Despite all the restrictions, we continue to seek out and develop new safe ways to offer support. A significant share of your donations still goes towards this work, and helping people facing repression remains a core part of our mission.

We are here because of you. Thank you for standing with us at this most challenging time!

In solidarity,

The OVD-Info team

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