The Final Statement
‘In reality, I am the Russian Federation in this courtroom–the Russian Federation that has been put in a cage and wants to be silenced’.
Pursuant to Part 2 of Article 49 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, an accused person is not required to prove their innocence.
Both the prosecution and the court know perfectly well that I am innocent. Nevertheless, throughout this entire criminal case, from the moment it was initiated–both during the preliminary investigation and during the trial–my lawyers and I have been engaged in proving my innocence.
Why does the prosecution persist in its dishonest accusation, while the court, rejecting virtually every motion filed by the defense, does everything possible to prevent new evidence of my innocence from being added to the case? Because this is a political criminal case.
What is the essence and purpose of a political criminal case? A political criminal case does not seek to establish the truth or obtain evidence of a person’s guilt. Its only purpose is to punish a person for their political, social, and civic position. Often, simply for the fact that a person disagrees with those in power.
A political criminal case has no genuine criminal-law substance. There is an imitation of an investigation and a trial designed to achieve a predetermined unlawful goal. In essence, all political criminal cases are attempts by people in power to persecute people who have no power and disagree with them.
What has been devised as the factual basis of the criminal case under Article 280.3? Allegedly, it is the dissemination of information about a statement made by my debate opponent, historian and academic Igor Sergeyevich Pivovarov. The prosecution knows perfectly well that the Odnoklassniki social-network page named ‘Lev Shlosberg’ was not created by me. This is demonstrated by the IP address used to create it, which I have never used. The post itself, containing a link to a video recording of the debate, was not posted by me either, as is likewise demonstrated by the IP address from which it was posted. But the prosecution pays no attention whatsoever to these obvious discrepancies. The fact that my phone accessed the Internet four minutes before the post appeared on Odnoklassniki proves absolutely nothing relevant to the case. No social-network applications have ever been installed on any of my phones–only messaging applications.
Pursuant to Part 3 of Article 49 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, irreconcilable doubts as to a person’s guilt are interpreted in favor of the accused. The prosecution dismisses all doubts and constructs the following chain of reasoning: there is an Odnoklassniki social-network page called ‘Lev Shlosberg’–it does not matter who created the page; Lev Shlosberg has a phone with Internet access, and that phone accessed the Internet shortly before the post was published. Therefore, Lev Shlosberg posted it.
In political criminal cases, the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the fundamental rules of criminal law are not applied. Under Article 54 of the Constitution, a law establishing or aggravating liability has no retroactive effect. No one may be held liable for an act that was not recognized as a crime at the time it was committed.
Pursuant to Part 2 of Article 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, this Code is based on the Constitution of the Russian Federation and generally recognized principles and norms of international law. Pursuant to Part 1 of Article 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the criminal nature of an act, its punishability, and other criminal-law consequences are determined solely by this Code. Pursuant to Article 9 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the criminal nature and punishability of an act are determined by the criminal law in force at the time the act was committed.
Pursuant to Article 10 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, a criminal law establishing the criminal nature of an act, increasing the punishment, or otherwise worsening a person’s position has no retroactive effect. In this criminal case, a law that entered into force on March 4, 2022 is being applied to an act committed by an unidentified person on February 25, 2022. Before that date, Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation did not exist.
The application of a law retroactively is sufficient grounds for the immediate termination of unlawful criminal prosecution at any stage of the preliminary investigation or trial! But this does not happen, although my lawyers filed the relevant motions both with the investigator and with the court. Why? Because this is a political criminal case in which the law has been destroyed.
Strictly speaking, the criminal case insofar as it concerns Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation could not have been initiated at all, given the obvious impermissibility of applying the law retroactively. But the case was initiated! Why? Because this is a political criminal case in which the law has been destroyed.
The criminal case under Article 207.3, in addition to violating the rules prohibiting the retroactive application of the law, was initiated in gross violation of the rules governing investigative jurisdiction. Pursuant to Article 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, the initiation of cases under Article 207.3 falls exclusively within the investigative jurisdiction of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. Yet the case was unlawfully initiated by an investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while the Pskov Region Prosecutor’s Office, instead of annulling the unlawful decision to initiate the criminal case within 24 hours, unlawfully determined the investigative jurisdiction by substantively distorting the provision of Part 7 of Article 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. That provision states that when criminal cases falling within the jurisdiction of different preliminary-investigation bodies are joined in a single proceeding, jurisdiction is determined by the prosecutor in compliance with the jurisdiction established by this Article. It was possible to transfer the joined case for preliminary investigation to the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for the Pskov Region, but it was not possible to transfer it to the Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Pskov Region.
But the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Pskov Region twice–in October 2024 and in September 2025–found no grounds for initiating a criminal case. Then, instead of refusing to initiate a criminal case, a knowingly unlawful decision was made to transfer the case to an unauthorized body, which, apparently, [inaudible] the prosecutor’s office initiated the case in gross violation of investigative jurisdiction.
I imagine the following hypothetical conversation at a meeting at the Pskov Region Prosecutor’s Office in November 2025:
–The Investigative Directorate does not want to initiate the case. What are we going to do?
–What are we going to do, what are we going to do… We’ll hand it over to the police; they’ll initiate it.
–And what about investigative jurisdiction?
–A Ministry of Internal Affairs investigator will initiate it, and we’ll agree and determine the jurisdiction as police jurisdiction. Let both cases be investigated. We can’t just let Shlosberg go. His house arrest expires on December 7.
–And what will happen to us for that?
–Nothing will happen to us. We’re fighting an enemy of the people, after all. Who will overturn it? No one will overturn it. The courts are ours. They’ll decide however we tell them to.
–Reliable! All right, just don’t forget to trim Article 151 wherever necessary so that it doesn’t stick out. Done.
What does arbitrariness look like? It looks exactly like this. The only antidote to arbitrariness is a court, but the sad impression is that the first-aid kit of the Pskov City Court contains no antidote to arbitrariness.
Practically all political criminal cases are initiated with the use of specially selected people, so-called experts, whose opinions become the cornerstone of the prosecution. These specialists are carefully selected; there are no random people among them. If there ever was someone–they were long ago [inaudible]. All these people sign an undertaking acknowledging liability for knowingly giving a false expert opinion, which in theory should be sufficient to deter lawlessness, but does not serve that purpose. Why? Because when a political criminal case is initiated, experts are told in advance why their opinion is needed and what that opinion is supposed to be.
The content of an expert examination, its compliance with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, the rules of special methodologies, and the principles of scientific rigor cease to matter to the investigation and the court. The only thing that matters is the conclusion, even if it contradicts the so-called research section of the expert opinion.
Did the experts Sarkisova and Polkovnikova of the Russian Ministry of Justice laboratory in Kaliningrad know that they were violating the rules governing expert examinations established by special methodologies? I believe they did. Why did they violate them? Because without violating the methodologies, it would be impossible to provide the answer required by the investigation. And because they are confident that they will go unpunished. After all, this is a political criminal case, where anything goes.
Did expert Sarkisova, who was assigned the linguistic examination to determine signs of hatred in a publication on a Telegram channel, know that she was giving a false expert opinion? Of course she did. Why did this knowledge not stop her? Because this is a political criminal case, and in this political criminal case anything goes.
Did expert Vasilyeva, a political scientist at the Russian Ministry of Justice laboratory in Kostroma, know that she was attempting to establish the presence of political hatred in violation of scientifically substantiated methodologies? I believe she did. Did she know that the question put to her was fundamentally outside the scope of her professional competence and that she could not and had no right to answer it? I believe she did. Why did she not refuse to conduct the examination? Why did she assume responsibility that she could not, in principle, bear? Why did she reach a conclusion that had no connection even with her own so-called research section of the expert opinion? Because without these violations, it would be impossible to provide the answer required by the investigation, and because she is confident that she will go unpunished. After all, this is a political criminal case, where anything goes.
The reaction of the prosecution to the appearance in the case, during the trial, of opinions by professional specialists in linguistics–Elena Vladimirovna Novozhilova–and political science–Dmitry Vladimirovich Goncharov–is highly revealing. Their level of knowledge and training, command of all the necessary methodologies, prior professional experience, and their comprehensive, conscientious, and detailed research, as well as the resulting opinions, surpass the opinions commissioned by the investigation by several orders of magnitude. The prosecution believes that the methodologically impeccable opinions of highly qualified specialists have no evidentiary value and should not be taken into consideration by the court. Meanwhile, documents prepared by jack-of-all-trades experts in gross violation of criminal-procedure law and established methodologies–in fact, fraudulent expert opinions tailored to a political order–should have evidentiary force and should be accepted by the court as proper evidence for the prosecution, on the basis of which a knowingly innocent person may be unlawfully convicted.
In my understanding, a knowingly false expert opinion is essentially no different from a knowingly false denunciation. The nature of such an act is the same–a deliberate lie.
A political criminal case never goes without false witnesses. Throughout the country, including in the Pskov Region, an entire class of false witnesses has been created–regularly appearing as ‘disinterested persons’ willing to confirm anything the authorities ask them to confirm. For them, this is an active civic position. The so-called ‘disinterested persons’ used by the investigation in this criminal case–Ivanov, Semyonov, Semenkov, and Lukin–are directly interested in my prosecution and conviction. During questioning in court, they openly speak of their political hostility toward me; they admit that they participated in public events of a nationalist nature; they are connected by shared beliefs and a negative assessment of my political activities; and they belong to the same organizational structure.
I assert that the so-called witnesses Semenkov and Lukin gave knowingly false testimony in court for motives that must be established by the investigation and the court. I assert that neither of them saw the cover of the Daily Mirror newspaper in the ‘Lev Shlosberg’ Telegram channel on February 25, 2022, and, moreover, neither could have translated from English into Russian, by any possible means, an inscription that was inaccessible to human perception, as specialist Novozhilova convincingly demonstrated in her opinion and in court, with reference to the relevant GOST standard, pages 31 and 33 of the specialist opinion dated May 12, 2026.
We believe that Semenkov and Lukin were presented, no earlier than 2024, with a printout of the cover of the Daily Mirror made from an image that had never been posted in the ‘Lev Shlosberg’ Telegram channel and that could not have been obtained by downloading an image from that Telegram channel. At the same time, during questioning by the investigator on January 26 and 27, 2026, both Semenkov and Lukin gave synchronized false testimony containing statements about facts that did not correspond to reality–both concerning the content of the image and my political position.
In my view, the printout of the cover of the Daily Mirror, separately attached to the record and repeatedly mentioned in the case materials, should receive particular attention from the court. It was subsequently used continuously both during the preliminary investigation and by the prosecution in court, including during the trial when questioning witnesses. The prosecutor constantly shows the witnesses in the case a printout of precisely this image, presenting the situation as though this was the very image downloaded from the publication in the ‘Lev Shlosberg’ Telegram channel dated February 25, 2022.
But this image has an entirely different origin. It was obtained from another source that has still not been identified. The resolution of the image in this printout differs from that of the image posted in the Telegram channel. Specialist Novozhilova’s opinion establishes that it would have been impossible for a human observer to read the text of the comment accompanying the photograph in the image posted in the ‘Lev Shlosberg’ Telegram channel; once again, I refer to pages 31 and 33 of the specialist opinion dated May 12, 2026.
I believe that in this case we are dealing with the falsification of evidence as a result of operational-search activities.
At the same time, a printout from precisely this file was submitted for translation to Moscow State University in February 2024. The same printout was sent, by an unidentified method, by investigator Vasilyev to expert Sarkisova of the Russian Ministry of Justice laboratory in Kaliningrad, and she analyzed it in her opinion dated November 14, 2025. The same printout was sent to expert Vasilyeva of the Ministry of Justice laboratory in Kostroma for an examination concerning the presence of political hatred. In other words, all the evidence allegedly establishing guilt in the episode under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is based on evidence obtained outside the object examined during the operational-search activity, with the aim of creating an evidentiary basis for an allegedly serious crime. Neither the preliminary investigation nor the prosecution pays any attention whatsoever to this circumstance. And the prosecution uses this evidence so regularly that one is led to suspect how deeply it is aware of the circumstances in which this, in quotation marks, ‘evidence’ was obtained.
A few words about hatred. I believe that expert Vasilyeva is unfamiliar with the classical dictionaries of the Russian language. I think the level of her knowledge did not allow her to study these fundamental volumes. Therefore, I will cite all the definitions of the concept of ‘hatred’ from the dictionaries of the great Russian language used by Russian speakers throughout the world: Ozhegov and Shvedova’s Dictionary of the Russian Language, AZ Publishers, 1992: ‘Hatred–a feeling of intense hostility, malice. To harbor, to feel hatred toward someone. Hatred suffocates someone, overwhelms someone’.
Second–the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language in four volumes, edited by Ushakov, Moscow, Soviet Encyclopedia, OGIZ, published in 1935–1940: ‘Hatred–a feeling of the strongest hostility. The exploiting classes, during the lifetimes of the great revolutionaries, repaid them with constant persecution, met their teachings with the wildest malice, the fiercest hatred, the most reckless campaign of lies and slander. Implacable hatred. Hatred toward someone. Class hatred. Deadly hatred’.
Kuznetsov, Great Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language, author’s edition, 2000, approximately 1,500 pages: ‘Hatred–a feeling of extreme contempt, the strongest dislike, hostility. To feel hatred toward someone, something. To tremble with hatred. Hatred suffocates someone. To speak with hatred about something’.
Fourth–the Russian Semantic Dictionary, an explanatory dictionary systematized by classes of words and meanings, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language, under the general editorship of Shvedova, Moscow, Azbukovnik, 1998: ‘Hatred–a feeling of persistent, profound malice toward someone or something. To feel hatred toward someone, something. Hatred suffocates, overwhelms someone. To look at someone with hatred. From love to hatred is one step, aphorism’.
The Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl, third revised and expanded edition, edited by the author with a preface by Professor Baudouin de Courtenay, four volumes, Saint Petersburg–Moscow, Wolff Publishing House, 1903–1911: ‘To hate someone, something–to be unable to tolerate, to dislike, to be unable to bear, to feel aversion, disgust. To wish someone harm, to be someone’s enemy, to harbor hostility, malice, the strongest possible dislike. One should not hate a criminal, but should hate vice. One can hate a person without wishing them harm. Whoever offends someone hates that person. Those who hate and those who love, forgive me. To hate against someone or something. To be hateful against or without a case ending. To hate–presumably, to act constantly in the spirit of hatred, malice. Hating–an action according to its meaning. Hatred, hate–aversion, disgust, ill will, strong dislike, hostility, malicious intent. Good in hatred against evil. Hatred has struck. Hateful, hating, filled with hatred, malice; hated, despised, disliked, worthy of hatred, persecution. Hater, hateful person, malicious, Moscow and Tver dialect. Hater, male or female–one who hates someone or something. This is my hater. I am a hater of boiled turnips. Hateful, hating, inclined to hatred, often, greatly, readily hating. This person is hated by everyone. Hated. They hate each other like a cat and a dog’.
The case file contains the opinion of Doctor of Political Science Dmitry Vladimirovich Goncharov. I am uncomfortable quoting it in my speech, but I confirm that I personally approved the submission of 22 of my own texts, written after February 24, 2022, for a political-science examination by Doctor of Political Science and Professor Goncharov. The honorable court may open this opinion, its final section, and read what Professor and Doctor of Political Science Goncharov thinks about my political, ethical, cultural, and moral position. Not a single letter of this position is compatible with the concept of hatred.
During the preliminary investigation, the investigator commissioned a comprehensive psychological and linguistic examination of the debate that took place on January 10, 2025, between me and academician and historian Yuri Sergeyevich Pivovarov. The decision ordering this examination was subsequently cancelled by a superior official. I will venture to suggest why this was done. The investigation finally either watched the entire debate or read the full transcript of the debate. My political position became clear; it became clear that a linguistic examination of the debate in its entirety would fully reflect this political and ethical position.
How can a person be convicted for such a political and ethical position even under the current state of the Russian justice system–for words spoken by my opponent, with whom I disagreed and argued? I cannot say that there are things that are impossible for Russian courts today, but, let us put it this way, there are things that are extremely difficult.
I will now comment on my principal statements in this discussion, based on the transcript of the broadcast contained in the case materials. The debate was heard in its entirety during the trial, and its transcript was also read out. There will be several quotations, and I will comment on their content.
When, after Stalin’s death in 1953, the machinery of repression was suspended, the first actual decision taken by the political leadership of the USSR was to strip the security agencies of political power. This did not fully stop arbitrariness, but it substantially curtailed it. It was precisely through political decisions that the process of rehabilitation began, when the very same courts and the very same judges who had handed down convictions, including death sentences, began issuing acquittals on the grounds that no elements of a crime were present. The lives, health, and time of those people, however, could no longer be restored.
Since 2021, the security agencies in our country have been granted de facto political powers, which has led to a sharp increase in the level of people’s lack of rights, lawlessness, and arbitrariness. Granting the security agencies political power and the de facto right to make political decisions deprived Russian courts of their independence. The loss of judicial independence has led to the destruction of the judiciary as the highest authority.
The repressive legislation created in our country in the 21st century has distorted the very essence, aims, and functions of Russia’s law-enforcement and judicial systems. Laws that directly diminish and abolish the constitutional rights and freedoms of individuals and citizens have, in strict accordance with their design, become instruments of extralegal persecution of citizens by the state. Law and legislation have diverged from one another to a degree never seen throughout the entire post-Soviet period. An unlawful law destroys a state faster than corrosion destroys metal.
Thousands upon thousands of criminal cases have been brought against people for their beliefs–peaceful, non-violent, and humanistic. The purpose of thousands upon thousands of criminal cases has been to suppress dissent and reproduce fear throughout society. One person is imprisoned, while fear creeps into the hearts of millions. The spread of fear in society as a result of the actions of law-enforcement agencies has changed people’s perception of these institutions–people have come to fear security officials, perceiving them as a source of potential danger rather than as protectors of their interests, rights, and freedoms.
I know very well how conscientious members of the security agencies experience such changes. In our country, the very concept of a crime as a genuinely socially dangerous act has been distorted. Under the new laws, freely expressing one’s peaceful beliefs has become a crime. A crime is the defense of human dignity, protest against violence, disagreement with evil, compassion, sympathy, and mercy toward others. Virtues are persecuted, while vices are encouraged and exalted. Denunciations and outright false testimony have become the queen of evidence.
Thousands upon thousands of criminal cases have become instruments of persecution, slander, forcing people out of public and political life, bans on practicing their professions, hunting for enemies invented by the state itself, personal revenge, and a desire bordering on sadism to inflict the maximum possible suffering on relatives and loved ones–essentially, instruments for destroying the human personality.
Thousands of security-agency employees, whose education and professional training have cost the state hundreds of billions of rubles, spend their working hours on social media hunting for thoughts and words, posts, reposts, images, videos, likes, and comments. Successful hunts are rewarded with ranks, positions, commendations, bonuses, and promotions. Reputational risks are often more frightening than risks to life, but in the heat of the hunt for people, employees try not to think about this.
Entire clusters of crimes have emerged in which there are no victims and no legal consequences. The state considers itself to be such a victim–that is, the government in power–but shamefacedly keeps this hidden: the authority of the government has become the object protected by these new laws. The government seems to personify itself and recognizes itself, not the individual, as the highest value in the state. This is deeply shameful, but shame can only be felt by a human being who knows what suffering and mercy are.
Which participant in the hostilities has been helped by the new repressive laws to preserve their life? For whom have they saved relatives and loved ones? Whom have they allowed to preserve their honor and dignity? After all, those are the only reasons for which laws could be enacted. There is no other reason, if we follow the Constitution of Russia.
The new repressive laws have had their most destructive impact on Russia’s judicial system. The constitutional foundation of judicial power–above all, an independent court–has effectively been destroyed. The separation of powers no longer exists. Court decisions are predetermined outside the courts. Adversarial proceedings based on equality of the parties have been replaced by accusatory trials in which the judge acts as the chief prosecutor and the principal violator of human rights and freedoms. Courts exist, but there is no justice!
The destruction of judicial power is tantamount to the destruction of the state itself. The absence of justice is a diagnosis of the state’s abandonment of judicial protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals and citizens. When the judiciary ceases to fulfill its purpose, the Constitution de facto loses its force and ceases to operate.
I very much hope that the current prosecutors will have good children–intelligent, honest, kind, fair, and noble. Sooner or later, they will ask their parents what happened in our country in our time and why. They will ask who worked where and in what capacity, what they did, what they achieved, and what they brought to society. It is important for every person to justify their life. Justification–from the word ‘truth’. And only truth brings meaning to life. And if there was no truth in a person’s life, what will that person say when standing before the Supreme Court?
The new repressive legislation has caused an outburst of political, ideological, and national hatred in our country, dividing Russian society and destroying the first shoots of civic peace. The time of the prosecutors presents the state and its supporters not only as always right, but also as entitled to use force to suppress those who disagree with state policy, including on questions of war and peace.
Peaceful disagreement with the state has been criminalized both in legislation and in law-enforcement practice. The Criminal Code, investigative bodies, and courts have replaced civic dialogue and discussion. The strength of the evidence for the correctness of state policy is measured in years of imprisonment–for those who publicly disagree–and waves of suffocating fear–for those who disagree silently.
Civic dialogue is itself a safeguard of human rights and freedoms. The destruction of civic dialogue has left tens of millions of people voiceless and defenseless before the state. When free speech is transformed into years of imprisonment, freedom of speech as an institution ceases to exist. Freedom of speech and freedom of mass information are impossible without state guarantees. Law always requires state protection, and only a lack of rights requires state inaction. Arbitrariness emerges where the state ceases to protect rights, including the right to civic dialogue.
The new repressive laws are turning Russian society into a class society once again–that is, they are taking it back a century. A class society is always sustained by the dictatorship of the ruling class–an estate of people who have monopolized state power and abuse that power in their own interests. As a rule, not even in the interests of the entire estate, but in the interests of a bureaucratic group acting on behalf of that estate.
Dictatorship excludes civic dialogue. The one who dictates hears no one but themselves. If a person who disagrees with its policies comes into the field of vision of such a state, the state does not perceive that person as a partner in dialogue, but as an adversary, viewing them through the sights of legislation specifically designed for this purpose. Only the state can destroy the conditions for civic dialogue in a country.
Civic dialogue is the natural state of society. But where human rights and freedoms are destroyed, civic dialogue is impossible. Where the state reproduces fear, people will not speak. Without civic dialogue, civic peace in a country is impossible.
Creating conditions for the growth of hatred and hostility sets in motion the most frightening process for society–the dehumanization of people. Hatred and hostility dehumanize. Dehumanization makes possible taking malicious pleasure in another person’s suffering and death, awakens cruelty and intransigence in people, and creates a willingness to prove one’s rightness not simply by force, but through the repressive mechanisms of the state. Instead of the need to speak and argue, there emerges the possibility of punishing a person for their thoughts and words.
The language of dehumanized people is the language of hate. Such language makes civic dialogue impossible. It is impossible to speak of compassion and mercy in the language of hate!
The state bears full responsibility for the moral condition of society. The seeds of evil ripen fastest in the storehouses of state policy when human and civil rights and freedoms are driven out of them. Our country has already seen how far a class society can go in the political trials of the 20th century and the orchestrated rallies that accompanied those trials. Some people publicly hated other people and considered this the fulfillment of their civic duty. The state encouraged and welcomed the political and moral corruption of the individual. It was precisely in people corrupted by hatred that it saw its support. It was precisely such people that it sought to manipulate and control.
Millions of personal and family tragedies unfolded in an atmosphere of hatred and hostility. Millions of lives were permanently ruined. The state invested all its resources in building bastions of hatred and hostility, but ultimately it achieved nothing. The natural human condition rejected the state’s ideas alien to human nature, a state founded on lies and violence. People ceased to support the authorities psychologically. After that, the social and political system in our country changed.
Where are we now? Have we already passed the point of no return, when Russian society will find the strength both to preserve its humanity and to influence the policies of a state that has abandoned its purpose?
Supporters and organizers of repression always believe that a repressive policy will last forever–or at least that it will last for their lifetime. What happens afterward, beyond their own lives, generally does not concern them. People who produce a lack of rights, cruelty, and hatred do not like to think about the future, because when a person thinks about the future, they think about others, not themselves. Cruelty and hatred are always deeply absorbed in the present, in which they believe they exercise absolute power.
Prosecutors always want to put a full stop to history. But the great and life-giving power of history lies in the fact that history never ends. Over three and a half decades, Russia has traveled from exhilaration to despair, from hope to disappointment, from the euphoria of sudden freedom to fear of freedom. From this despair, these disappointments, and this fear has grown the present time, in which the person who considers the human being the highest value is deprived of freedom, while the person who regards all human lives except their own as worthless acts on behalf of the state.
It is morally difficult to see and understand this. But this is where we are today. This is how our history has unfolded. Much has already been said, and much more will be said, about the causes of this catastrophe–and this is a genuine national catastrophe. The country still has to turn the pages of the past decades year after year and retrace every step along the road that has brought us to the present day. This must be done in order to finally change the steep course, on either side of which lie prison cells and mass graves.
Russia has paid more than enough for peace and freedom, but evidently, it must pay more.
Ahead of us lies a new window of historical opportunity. We do not know when it will open, when the light will become strong enough to push back and disperse the darkness. But it will inevitably happen, because the laws of history, like the laws of nature, are stronger than the voluntarism of temporary rulers. No one in history has yet managed to deceive time. Unlike good, evil has no access to immortality.
When peace and freedom come to our country, we will ask our present-day prosecutors to learn…
Judge: Who is ‘we’? Are you speaking about yourself?
We will ask our present-day prosecutors to learn…
Judge: Defendant, defendant, speak for yourself. Say ‘I’, then.
I will ask my present-day prosecutors to learn just one song–a lullaby in which a mother promises her baby a happy life.
Judge: Is that all?
Yes, Your Honor.
August 14, 2026,
Pskov City Court, Pskov, Russia.
Source: Yabloko
More information: Memorial. Political Prisoners
Photo: Pskov Yabloko.