Sick and forgotten: The lives of over 100 Russian political prisoners are in danger

It was August 2024, and the United States and Europe were celebrating the successful exchange of a large group of Russian political prisoners for several Kremlin spies. The operation had been a political success for the governments involved, but it was marred by the absence of Alexei Navalny, the best-known figure in the Russian opposition in the West and President Vladimir Putin’s arch-rival, who died the previous February. With no other familiar faces from the red carpets or international forums, thousands of opponents were left behind bars in Russia. Human rights organizations and the UN are calling on the Kremlin to treat them more humanely and on Washington and European capitals not to forget them.

The Trump administration is negotiating with the Kremlin for a new prisoner exchange between the two countries, the second during the Republican’s new term. According to the list leaked to Reuters, Washington is offering the release of nine Russians in exchange for nine Americans accused of assaulting a police officer, child abuse, drug dealing, and theft, among other crimes.

Several European diplomatic sources consulted by EL PAÍS say they have “no evidence” that any negotiations are underway with Moscow to try to free more Russian political prisoners.

However, not all of the prisoners exchanged a year ago were happy about their release. Opposition sources tell this newspaper that some regretted not being able to set an example for other Russians from within the country after being forced by the Kremlin to live in exile.

2,000 political prisoners

The UN Human Rights Committee in Russia reports that there are still more than 2,000 political prisoners incarcerated in the country, at least 120 of them “in imminent danger due to their critical health, age, or disability.” “These people must be released before another political prisoner dies in Russian jails, as Navalny did a year ago,” denounced Mariana Katsarova, the UN special envoy to Russia, in February.

The Russian human rights organization OVD-Info is monitoring the repression of protesters and dissidents in the country. According to its data, at least 1,607 people remain behind bars in Russia for political reasons. “Of these, more than 180 suffer from various health problems,” spokesperson Dmitry Anismov told this newspaper.

“Some are in a particularly dire situation, although the situation for the rest is no better because Russian penitentiary institutions almost never provide defendants with any standard treatment or diagnosis, apart from the occasional cheap painkiller,” Anismov says. The NGO, declared a foreign agent and blocked in Russia, warns that the conditions in which prisoners live threaten their health: “Minor ailments, without proper diagnosis and treatment, and in poor living conditions, can develop into serious problems.”

“Prison hospitals have few specialists and lack the necessary modern equipment,” says the OVD-Info spokesperson. Anismov criticizes the fact that staff at these facilities sometimes refuse to administer medication “because they simply don’t want to.” “And it is very difficult, almost impossible, to transfer a prisoner from a prison to a regular hospital,” he adds.

Olga Romanova, director of the NGO Russia Behind Bars, published the same list of prisoners Washington is demanding from Moscow before news agency Reuters did. The Russian activist emphasized that only U.S. prisoners are listed, and that the release of Russian political prisoners has not been discussed at any point.

The lives of more than 120 Russian dissidents are now in serious danger. One of them was on the shortlist for the August 2024 exchange, “but his name was crossed off the list at the last minute,” according to Ilia Yashin, one of the dissidents who did take part in the exchange. “Expelled from Russia, not freed,” he clarified at the time.

The dissident in question is Alexei Gorinov, 63, a member of the opposition Solidarity movement and a former Moscow city councilor. This veteran politician was the first Russian convicted under the new law against “discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.” A court sentenced him to six years and 11 months in prison in 2022 for saying during a district meeting that it was not appropriate to hold an event for Children’s Day while children were being killed on the front lines. Another court added three years to his sentence in 2024 for “justifying terrorism” by defending Ukraine in private conversations with other inmates.

Gorinov, who is missing a lung, has just been diagnosed with tuberculosis. The dissident relapsed during another transfer from one prison to another, and doctors discovered the disease during an X-ray. “He’s not receiving treatment [...] Tuberculosis is doubly dangerous for him; he may not survive,” his lawyer, Natalia Tertukhina, warned Novaya Gazeta.

Some opposition members’ only connection to the outside world is a handful of blank sheets of paper. “In front of the pretrial detention center, there’s a lot of vegetation (I finally saw it!) and many apartments with small, narrow windows. You can see the sky!” Gorinov wrote in a letter published by the activist’s support platform following his final transfer to an unknown prison.

The life of journalist Maria Ponomarenko is also in danger. Arrested in April 2022, a court sentenced the reporter to six years in prison for criticizing the massacre of civilians sheltering in the Mariupol theater. Her outlet, Rusnews, reports that Ponomarenko is “on the verge of suicide”: in March, she slit her wrists and in April, she began a hunger strike after denouncing mistreatment in prison.

“Her mental health has deteriorated under arrest, and she has been forcibly injected with unknown substances,” denounces Amnesty International — which was declared an undesirable organization in Russia last week. Her lawyer, Dmitry Shitov, claims that Ponomarenko “needs psychotherapeutic help that cannot be provided in the pre-trial detention center.”

Another case is that of Igor Baryshnikov, sentenced in 2023 to seven and a half years in prison for “spreading false information about the Armed Forces” by criticizing the Bucha and Mariupol massacres.

The opposition leader underwent surgery while on trial in 2023. “Baryshnikov has prostate hyperplasia, and urine drainage is only possible through a tube in the abdomen,” OVD-Info reports. Furthermore, a medical council declared his condition to be on the list of conditions that exempt him from serving a prison sentence. Despite this, and despite caring for his 97-year-old disabled mother, he was imprisoned. His mother died shortly afterward, and the authorities did not allow him to attend the funeral. “His health continues to deteriorate,” the NGO warns.

Other political prisoners were jailed for reasons other than the invasion of Ukraine. Zarema Musayeva, the wife of a former Russian Supreme Court judge and mother of two activists protesting from exile against the regime of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was kidnapped in Nizhny Novgorod and forcibly transferred to the Caucasian republic in January 2022.

Accused of an alleged fraud that has never been proven, she remains in pretrial detention, where she has begun to suffer serious health problems. OVD-Info reports that the Chechen authorities are failing to provide medical care to Musayeva despite her high-risk status: she has lost mobility due to back pain, suffers from acute hypertensive crises accompanied by loss of consciousness, and suffers from type 2 diabetes along with a series of comorbidities that require constant medical supervision.

If the situation of the Russians is dire, that of Belarusian prisoners is worse. Even the August 2024 exchange did not include any, as the Aleksandr Lukashenko regime instead released a German. The West has 1,187 prisoners to choose from in that country, according to the Viasná organization. This group even includes a Nobel Prize winner, the organization’s president, Ales Bialiatsky.

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