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05.06.2026
On 4 June 2026, OVD-Info, a human rights media project, was added to Rosfinmonitoring’s so-called list of terrorists and extremists as an ‘extremist organisation’.
The grounds for adding OVD-Info to the list are now clear: the authorities designated the project as a structural subdivision of the non-existent ‘International Memorial Movement,’ which Russia’s Supreme Court declared an ‘extremist organisation’ and banned on 9 April.
The hearing was held behind closed doors, and the court’s ruling has still not been published. As a result, it remains impossible to say with certainty what was deemed to be a ‘structural subdivision’ of the ‘International Memorial Movement.’ We are not terrorists. We are not extremists. And we want to state clearly what this decision actually means.
This is a ban on a profession. For 14 years, we have been doing the same work: documenting detentions, providing legal assistance, and explaining how laws work and how they are used against ordinary people. To call this ‘extremism’ is to outlaw the work itself: helping a detainee, documenting what is happening, and giving people access to information about their own rights.
The authorities are trying to criminalise knowledge itself. Recording detentions, reporting sentences, explaining how laws are applied-this is not ‘extremism.’ It is society’s right to understand what is happening to it. When information about repression is declared criminal, the blow is aimed not at us, but at everyone who is denied the opportunity to learn the truth about their own country. An organisation can be banned. People’s ability to know cannot.
This is a war on memory. Although we have never been part of Memorial, the link the authorities have drawn is not accidental. We are engaged in the same broader work. Memorial has never been only about the past-it documents both Soviet-era repression and repression happening today. OVD-Info keeps the same record: of detentions, prosecutions and sentences, ensuring they do not disappear into silence. Memory connects one to the other and makes repetition visible. A state that rewrites the past cannot tolerate evidence about the present-which is why it seeks to ban both at once.
This is punishment for disloyalty. The so-called list of ‘terrorists and extremists’ is increasingly becoming a register of the unwanted: people who do not stay silent, who help the ‘wrong’ people, and who remember the ‘wrong’ things. The label ‘extremist’ no longer describes violence. It describes a relationship to power. The real accusation here is simply disloyalty. We do not accept these labels. We are not ending our work. We are not shutting down. They will not get what they want.
These lists will outlast the people who compile them. They have already ceased to be tools of intimidation. These labels have become so widespread that they have lost their meaning. What remains is a document of an era. We are not frightened by being placed alongside people who were branded enemies simply for remembering, helping others, and refusing to stay silent. One day, this register will be read differently. What will matter then is not who appeared on it, but who kept it.
You have already lived through our designation as a ‘foreign agent,’ countless website blockings, the suspension and restoration of donations, our financial crises-and your own. You have watched organisations and media outlets you supported be labelled ‘undesirable,’ ‘foreign agents,’ or ‘extremists.’ None of it frightened you. You know how easily such labels are applied today, and how little they reveal about the people they are attached to.
But this decision goes further than any previous campaign against OVD-Info. ‘Extremism’ is the most severe of these stigmas, and for the first time it is being used not only against us, but against you as well.
By declaring our work extremist, the authorities are also declaring your support for detainees extremist, your right to know extremist, and your memory extremist. They are trying to leave you alone with a system that works best when no one is standing beside you.
But they will not succeed.
Do not let them intimidate you. We are staying.