The following is our review of anti-extremist law enforcement in November 2025.⁠

We have learned of 23 sentences handed down in November against 37 individuals on charges of involvement in extremist and terrorist groups and organizations whose activities we monitor.

Specifically, a resident of Ufa was sentenced to imprisonment for participating in the Maniacs. Murder Cult (Manyaki. Kult Ubiystv, MKU) movement and establishing its local cell among readers of the Brotherhood of Killers (Bratstvo ubiyts) Telegram channel. Five individuals were convicted for collaborating with the Russian Volunteer Corps (Russkiy dobrovolcheskiy korpus, RDK) and the Freedom of Russia Legion (Legion "Svoboda Rossii," LSR), both recognized as terrorist organizations in Russia. One person was found guilty of collaboration with the Ukrainian Azov Regiment. One individual was convicted of involvement in the AUE criminal subculture, and another one was punished for involvement in the Columbine subculture, which is banned as a terrorist organization.

We consider 13 sentences against 27 people to be inappropriate. The convicted individuals include five people who transferred money to the banned Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), five Crimean Tatars convicted of involvement in the radical Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia, Akhmed Pogorov, became the eighth leader of the 2019 protests in the republic to be convicted.

Fourteen people were sentenced to imprisonment, four received suspended sentences, four faced fines, and one individual was sentenced to compulsory labor. In addition, one case was dismissed due to the defendant’s death.

Since the beginning of the year, we have learned of 263 such sentences against 397 individuals. Of these, we classified 144 sentences against 211 individuals as completely or partially inappropriate. At least two individuals have been referred for compulsory treatment since the beginning of the year, and two cases have been closed owing to the defendants’ deaths.

We learned that at least 13 such cases were opened in November against at least 22 individuals. They are charged with involvement in the MKU, Volya party, Artpodgotovka movement, the RDK, Jehovah's Witnesses communities, and the "International LGBT movement," as well as with financing the FBK.

We have information on 45 verdicts issued in November against 46 individuals under the Criminal Code (CC) articles on public statements of interest to us. We view 16 of these verdicts, against 16 individuals, as completely or partially inappropriate.

Guilty verdicts can be grouped into the following partly overlapping categories based on the statements’ targets:

• Ten people were convicted for expressing ethnic xenophobia. Their charges were based primarily on social media posts targeting migrant workers from Central Asia or expressing approval of the Holocaust. In November, the underage administrator of the “Project Razgrom” Telegram channel, known under the alias Razgrom Palych, was sentenced to six years in a minimum-security penal colony. He was detained in October 2024 for posts on the channel. These posts reportedly included calls to beat migrants with iron bars and shoot them with traumatic weapons, as well as videos showing members of the banned neo-Nazi NS/WP network attacking migrants. One post also called for supporting in court those charged with attempting to assassinate TV host Vladimir Solovyov and for raising money for them.

• One person was convicted for engaging in radical Muslim propaganda in a pre-trial detention facility.

• 23 individuals were convicted for statements about the armed conflict with Ukraine. For 12 of them, we classified the charges brought in connection with their statements as inappropriate. A particularly notable case is that of Irina Kostrova from Sochi, sentenced to a year and a half of imprisonment for publishing on Odnoklassniki a photograph featuring both the German flag and the letter V, one of the symbols of the Russian military action in Ukraine.

• Four people were convicted for statements that the authorities deemed attacks on traditional Russian values and symbols. Marina Zheleznyakova, deputy chair of the Yabloko Party branch in Primorsky Krai, was fined two million rubles for an anti-Soviet phrase in her post commemorating Victory Day. Residents of the Orenburg and Tula regions were sentenced for posting images deemed to desecrate the St. George ribbon. A Ukrainian national was sentenced in absentia to imprisonment for uploading a photo of Hitler to the Immortal Regiment website back in 2021.
  Additionally, five people were convicted in November for desecrating material objects recognized by the courts as symbols of military glory: three cases involved using the Eternal Flame to light a cigarette, one involved dancing near a memorial, and one involved damaging a Victory Day installation.

• Three people were convicted for other statements directed against the authorities made in messengers and on social media (Odnoklassniki and Telegram).

• One person was punished for displaying symbols of the AUE criminal subculture.

38 of the 46 people were convicted for statements made online, four for statements made offline, and one for both online and offline speech.

22 people were sentenced to imprisonment, 11 received suspended sentences, three were sentenced to fines, and three to compulsory labor.

Though we lack information about the circumstances that specifically led to prison sentences, 15 individuals faced such sentences for their public speech in November.

Since the beginning of 2025, we have learned of 547 convictions for public speech against 573 individuals. Of these, 146 convictions against 156 people were deemed completely or partially inappropriate. Additionally, 11 individuals were sent to compulsory treatment.

We have information about 23 new criminal cases opened in November against 27 individuals for public speech under the articles of interest to us.

We recorded 22 court rulings on administrative offenses issued in November under Article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) for incitement to hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity. The cases were primarily based on comments made on VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Telegram against natives of Central Asia or the Caucasus (including specifically women from Azerbaijan), Jews, Serbs, Russians, and Christians. In all these cases, the courts imposed administrative fines on the individuals held responsible.

In six cases, we considered the sanctions inappropriate. The defendants faced charges for comments and posts that were regarded offensive towards public officials, most commonly police officers.

Since the beginning of the year, we know of 690 decisions imposing sanctions under Article 20.3.1 CAO. We view 152 of these as inappropriate.

We are aware of only one person punished in November under Article 20.29 CAO (production and distribution of extremist materials) - for posting on VKontakte the song "To Kill a Yid" by the band Instruktsiya po Vyzhivaniyu.

In total, since the beginning of 2025, we have recorded 143 cases of sanctions imposed for distributing materials from the Federal List of Extremist Materials. We consider 42 of these decisions inappropriate.

The list itself was updated once, on November 14, adding an electronic version of When Stones Cry by Hanna Daysi. The Supreme Court of Ingushetia banned it in August 2025. When Stones Cry is a work of fiction about the armed struggle against the Soviet regime undertaken in response to the 1944 deportation of the Ingush and Chechens. Experts concluded that it contained signs of incitement to hatred towards Ossetians, the Soviet armed forces, and both Soviet and modern Russian authorities, as well as encouragement of armed struggle against the current government.

Sanctions for hate crimes against the person or property are reviewed separately.