EXPLAINING THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN RUSSIA |
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Hello and welcome back to the Digest. |
Today we are covering the case of Ruslan Nurushev, a lawyer jailed for 6 years for standing up against the war — after a pro-Kremlin activist publicly denounced him. |
In solidarity, Dan Storyev |
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Trigger warning:
This is a newsletter about Russian repressions. Sometimes it will be hard to read. |
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This story begins in Volgograd — a major city in southern Russia that was once known as Stalingrad. In December 2011, protests against the falsification of the recent parliamentary elections began all over Russia. In Volgograd, concerned citizens organized themselves through the social media platform VKontakte. One of the numerous groups was called “Volgograd. Civil rally for fair elections.”
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A local lawyer, Ruslan Nurushev, was an active participant in this group. The group’s contacts section still includes journalist Sergei Mazanov, who was then-press secretary for Alevtina Aparina, a Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
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The Communist Party used to be, and still remains, a kind of an opposition force in Russian politics. Russianists call it “systemic opposition”, meaning that the Communists don’t rock the boat too much, but can clash with Putin’s dominant United Russia every now and then.
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Nurushev and Mazanov both attended street protests at the time, and the journalist became one of the leaders of the local movement “For Fair Elections” in early 2012. He was even detained because of a flag with the inscription “For Fair Elections”. In his blog at the time Mazanov posted critically about Vladimir Putin, ridiculing his rule. |
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Mazanov (center) and Nurushev (right, black hat) at a 2012 protest / Volgograd Protest and Fair Elections VK page |
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Since 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea, Ruslan Nurushev has been speaking out about politics on his social media without mincing words. In early 2015, Ruslan picketed in support of Ukraine. No statements by Mazanov about Ukraine during this period could be found online. |
Since the 2010s, Mazanov has collaborated with various Volgograd media outlets that were friendly towards local authorities and were using state money. The journalist’s once-critical rhetoric towards the authorities became more moderate by 2020. |
The publication V1.ru employed Mazanov as a columnist and called him, “a [content] producer known for his support of almost all fluctuations in the regional administration’s course and any of its initiatives, even the most controversial ones.”
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This introduction preceded his 2021 article, in which he criticized the eco-activist defenders of the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain, who he had protested side by side with several years earlier. |
Mazanov then began to support Putin, write celebratory posts about him, and share his quotes.
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Nurushev, however, continued to participate in street protests. He began attending Navalny’s protests, where he was detained and fined more than once. |
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Volgograd protest 23 January 2021 / Tatiana Filimonova for the Caucasus Knot |
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Immediately after the full-scale war began, Nurushev began protesting. He was detained on February 24th. |
Mazanov responded differently. On February 24th, he wrote on Instagram: “I don’t want to give an assessment of what is happening, but I am absolutely sure that our country is doing the right thing.”
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On March 5, Nurushev was detained again at an anti-war rally. The court arrested him for 15 days. |
That same day, Mazanov published a video of how an installation of the letter Z, which became a symbol of the Kremlin’s invasion, was lit up at a local stadium. “Z is shining at the Volgograd stadium. The symbol of the struggle for peace has adorned the place of the world’s victory over fascism — Stalingrad! For honor! For freedom! For our soldierZ! For MoZerland!” the journalist wrote.
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Ruslan Nurushev, on the other hand, published daily news on his social media about the progress of the war in Ukraine and the repressions in Russia. On October 6, 2022, Ruslan hung a banner on a central bridge: “Down with the war. Soldiers go home. Peace for the people. Putin to the shitter.” For this he was fined 45,000 rubles. |
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Banner on the central Komsomol Bridge / Telegram channel дозор в Волгограде |
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On February 16, 2024, the Kremlin killed Alexei Navalny. The next day, Ruslan came to the monument to honor the victims of political repression in Volgograd with flowers to honor Navalny’s memory.
On February 17, Mazanov commented online on the laying of flowers in memory of Navalny. He called those who mourned the deceased politician “enemies of the people”, and Navalny himself “an ordinary prisoner who betrayed his country” and “the leader of traitors”. |
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Russia’s Victory Day celebrations are all about memory. Read about how the Kremlin weaponizes the memory of some of the greatest tragedies in Russia’s history.
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A month later, the pro-government TV channel “Volgograd 1”, on which Mazanov had appeared as a presenter for the previous few years, published the personal data and places of work of Nurushev and other city residents who came to the monument on those days.
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Sergey read out their names and discussed each person with his co-host, former City Duma deputy Roman Potolovsky.
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“The list of those in Volgograd who not only imbued themselves with the spirit of opposition ideas, but openly expressed them, is a little astonishing. These people teach our children, work in banks, large firms,” Mazanov said on air. |
| Screenshot from TV channel “Volgograd 1 displaying Ruslan Nurushev's picture, job title and place of work, and VKontakte page address |
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Sometime thereafter a criminal case was opened against the lawyer under Criminal Code Article 207.3 for dissemination of fake news about the Russian army based on a VKontakte post dated May 26, 2024.
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It wasn’t initiated because of Mazanov, but because Nurushev was entangled in an another case as a witness. But Mazanov made sure to hang around.
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Nurushev wrote about a missile strike on a construction materials warehouse in Kharkiv that had occurred the day before:
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| Our latest war crime: the Russian Armed Forces struck Kharkiv, aerial bombs hit a construction hypermarket, at the moment we know of 16 dead and more than 40 injured as a result of the attack. |
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He provided a video of the airstrike. |
Ruslan says he has no regrets and would not have acted differently even if he knew a case would be brought against him: “because if you remain silent, you agree with the policies of the current government, and I do not agree.”
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The prosecutor’s office argued that Nurushev wrote in this post “about the negative consequences of this strike, causing death, physical and moral harm to civilians.” |
During one of the hearings the judge asked Ruslan to join the Russian military in exchange for dropping the case. He refused. Mazanov came to court to gloat. He tried to photograph Ruslan and ask him questions.
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Sergei Mazanov / Social media |
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“Despite the fact that the judge forbade Mazanov from taking photos in the courtroom, he ignored this ban and constantly photographed both me and Ruslan. He got into an argument with the lawyer and generally behaved provocatively, scandalously, under the shamefully lowered eyes of the judge and the prosecutor,” Ruslan’s university friend told the media outlet Caucasian Knot. “[Ruslan] looked incredibly thin and exhausted in the cage, but he remained stoic, even under Mazanov’s constant, satisfied, triumphant giggling. It all looked very gross and indecent.”
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On May 5, 2025 the sentence was announced: six years in a general regime colony with a ban on administering websites for three years after his release.
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