She discusses the destruction of Memorial inside Russia, the links between memory and authoritarianism, the role of civil society during wartime, and why, in her view, a lasting peace requires more than ending the fighting.

In this interview, Memorial human rights activist Alexandra Polivanova reflects on why understanding the past is essential to understanding Russia today.

Many people know Memorial for documenting the crimes of the Soviet past. But what does that work have to do with Russia’s war against Ukraine today?

The system was eventually exposed thanks to former prisoners, courageous psychiatrists, and international human rights campaigns.

Inside special psychiatric hospitals, people were subjected to forced medication, heavy sedatives, isolation, and indefinite confinement. Diagnoses such as “sluggish schizophrenia” transformed political disagreement into supposed evidence of mental illness.

Victims included students, scientists, writers, religious believers, workers, and human rights activists. Many had committed no crime beyond criticizing the government or refusing to conform.

Instead of imprisoning some critics through the criminal justice system, they declared them mentally ill and confined them to psychiatric hospitals. This practice became known as punitive psychiatry.

“You’re not a dissident. You’re ill.” For decades, Soviet authorities used psychiatry as a tool of political repression.

“There’s a terrible paradox in this“, says Russian HIV activist Maria Godlevskaya. “At a time when effective treatment exists and HIV is no longer a death sentence, people are still dying of AIDS — when they could be living long lives, building relationships, working, loving, and having children“.

The conspiracy theory spread around the world, undermining trust in science and reinforcing stigma. The consequences continue to be felt. Since official records began in 1987, 568,318 people have died of HIV-related causes in Russia, including 30,420 in 2025 alone.

When HIV first emerged in the early 1980s, Soviet authorities had years to prepare. Instead of educating the public about how the virus spreads, they restricted reliable information while the KGB promoted the false claim that HIV had been created in U.S. military laboratories.

How did the Soviet Union turn HIV into a Cold War weapon — and why does it still matter today? We spoke with journalist and creator of the podcast Only Positives, Rita Loginova, about the Soviet Union’s response to HIV — and how propaganda left a lasting legacy.

Meanwhile, courts kept prosecuting anti-war speech and alleged cooperation with Ukraine — handing down fines, long prison terms, and new cases against political prisoners already behind bars.

Resistance groups reported attacks on railways and communications equipment used to supply the Russian military.

Throughout June, people across Russia kept opposing the war in different ways. They spoke out against the invasion, brought flowers to memorials, and voiced solidarity with Ukraine.

Fragments of resistance and repression across Russia, June 2026

This was only the latest blow. Weeks earlier, on 15 June, a Russian strike set the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra ablaze — one of Ukraine's oldest monasteries and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The strikes killed at least 30 people, injured dozens more and damaged around 130 buildings across the capital, setting fires in its historic center, including a hotel in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

War is fought not only against people, but also against memory On the night of 1–2 July 2026, Russia hit Kyiv with one of the largest air assaults of the war — nearly 500 drones and more than 70 missiles.

There she met women from across the USSR: writers, dissidents, national activists, believers, and others imprisoned for challenging the Soviet regime.

In 1962, Latvian journalist Helēna Celmiņa was arrested for “anti-Soviet agitation.” After months in a KGB prison, she was sent to Dubravlag in Mordovia — the Soviet Union’s main prison camp system for political prisoners convicted of so-called “especially dangerous state crimes.”

What did everyday life look like inside the Soviet prison camp reserved for the regime’s “most dangerous criminals”? These drawings, made by a former prisoner, offer a rare glimpse inside.

Russia prosecutes prisoners of war and civilians alike — residents of occupied territories, men and women, pensioners and people barely out of their teens — on charges of “terrorism,” “sabotage,” or “espionage.” A conviction can mean decades behind bars.

When Russia began its armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014, Ukrainian men and women started filling Russian prisons and pre-trial detention centres. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, the scale only grew.

26 June marked the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Together with Political Prisoners Memorial we’re looking at how torture and pressure against Ukrainians in captivity became part of Russia’s effort to erase Ukrainian identity.

⚠️ This post describes torture and abuse of people held in detention.

The escape failed before the plane could take off. But the harsh sentences that followed — including two death penalties — sparked international outrage and transformed the struggle of Soviet Jewish «refuseniks» into a global human rights cause.

Most were Soviet Jews who had spent years being denied permission to emigrate. Alongside them were two former political prisoners. Frustrated by endless rejections and trapped behind the Iron Curtain, they saw no other way out.

Operation Wedding: the escape attempt that changed the Soviet Jewish movement In June 1970, sixteen Soviet citizens attempted a daring escape to freedom. Their plan was to seize a small passenger plane and fly it to Sweden.

These debates are not new. Nearly 50 years ago, the Venice Biennale became the scene of another political and cultural confrontation. In 1977, organizers launched an unprecedented program that came to be known as the "Dissidents’ Biennale".