DEAR READER,

We've got something special for you this week in our newsletter. We don't usually do interviews, but we had to share this one. Dive into our latest issue to catch an insightful conversation with Alexandra Polivanova, a dedicated human rights activist with Memorial. Don't miss it in our expert interview section!

Also, New Eastern Europe partnered with Club Alpbach Poland for Scholars Day, preparing the Polish delegation for the European Forum Alpbach. Scholars engaged with Austrian Ambassador Hannes Schreiber, Atlantic Council experts, European Commission representatives, and Polish policymakers to discuss transatlantic relations, Ukraine's reconstruction, European competitiveness, and the EU's future. Club Alpbach Poland trains young leaders for the Forum, a key platform for dialogue on democracy and innovation. Follow them on social media for updates, or visit the European Forum Alpbach website to learn more.

Enjoy reading this week’s “brief”!

— Giorgi Beroshvili, Editor

An interview with Alexandra Polivanova, a human rights activist with Memorial. Interviewer: Clara Sandgren

CLARA SANDGREN: In April 2026, your organization, Memorial, was labelled an extremist organization. How has this impacted your work?

ALEXANDRA POLIVANOVA: The events surrounding Memorial that took place in April 2026 should be understood in the broader context of the escalating persecution of Memorial and the wider crackdown on civil society in Russia over the past two decades. The systematic campaign against independent civil society organizations intensified after Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012. However, at that stage, while organizations were increasingly restricted in their activities, they were still allowed to exist. It was only after the Bolotnaya protests when the regime introduced the “foreign agents” law, which came into force in November 2012 that the repressions intensified. In many ways, the law appeared to have been written with Memorial specifically in mind. Between 2013 and 2015, several regional branches of Memorial were added to the “foreign agents” registry. In 2016, the International Memorial network was also designated as a “foreign agent”. By 2020, nearly all the Memorial organizations operating in Russia had been blacklisted.

Starting in 2019, Memorial was subjected to a wave of court-imposed fines for allegedly violating the “foreign agents” law. This was primarily because our publications did not carry the mandatory disclaimer identifying us as a “foreign agent”. Between 2019 and 2020, the fines totalled around 70,000 euros. For NGOs, this was an enormous sum, especially as most funding is tied to specific projects and cannot be used freely. As a result, we launched a crowdfunding campaign and managed to raise enough money to pay the fines. However, by December 2021, it became clear that even this would not save the organization. The Russian justice ministry filed lawsuits seeking the liquidation of Memorial’s two largest legal entities. By 2022, both had been dissolved under Russian law. At the time, we still did not know what would happen on February 24th 2022, and therefore did not yet fully understand the reasons behind the intensifying repression against Memorial.

In 2021 and 2022, the Putin regime clearly feared that NGOs and civil society groups could mobilize opposition to the war against Ukraine. By that point, however, Russian civil society had already been so heavily stifled, marginalized and discriminated against that it was no longer capable of mounting meaningful resistance. At the same time, the regime’s fear of anti-war opposition was evident in the speed with which wartime censorship laws were introduced. It was within a week of the full-scale invasion.

Despite the dissolution of Memorial’s two largest legal entities in Russia at the start of 2022, Memorial’s work inside the country continued even after the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24th 2022…

Yes, there were still separate legal entities operating in different cities, alongside independent groups of researchers, activists and human rights defenders who chose to remain in Russia. They stayed in their communities, continued their work and served as beacons for Memorial’s values even during the darkest period of the Putin regime. There is another important context surrounding Memorial that must also be taken into account: the coexistence of different and often competing memories of Soviet terror in Russia. For many years, the state has promoted patriotic narratives that leave little room for critical reflection on the internal terror carried out by the Soviet state against its own citizens, or on the international crimes committed by the USSR – and even earlier by the Russian Empire. Naturally, the memory of the Gulag did not fit comfortably within this framework. At the same time, engagement with liberal audiences that shared Memorial’s values prevented the memory of Soviet repressions from being entirely erased from the public sphere. The authorities could hardly leave this field entirely to Memorial. As a grassroots network of associations spread across the country and operating beyond state control, Memorial represented something inherently threatening to the regime.

For this reason, the state actively supported institutions such as the State Gulag Museum, whose role was, in part, to divert liberal audiences away from Memorial’s work. The museum avoided topics such as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17th 1939, the occupation of the Baltic states, the Winter War, the Katyń massacre, the post-war deportations, or the persecution of Ukrainian “nationalists” whose main “crime” was opposition to Soviet rule. These topics were absent from the museum’s narrative, unlike in Memorial’s work.

This more sanitized and carefully managed version of historical memory gained considerable acceptance within liberal circles. Beyond the Gulag Museum, regional history museums and commemorative initiatives were gradually brought under state control. For more than 30 years, the Russian state sought to construct parallel institutions and narratives that would divert public attention away from Memorial’s work. By 2026, however, the authorities no longer considered this necessary. On the one hand, the regime believed it had largely succeeded in dismantling independent civil society. On the other, it remained deeply fearful of any autonomous civic activity and therefore abandoned even its limited effort to engage the liberal audiences that had traditionally supported Memorial.

Can you explain what specifically happened in 2026?

In February 2026, two of Memorial’s exile organizations were designated as “undesirable”, effectively severing the remaining connections between activists inside Russia and those working in Europe. Then, in April, Memorial was declared an “extremist movement whose activities are prohibited in Russia”. This was a devastating blow to our work. For four years, Memorial had managed – remarkably – to bridge the divide between the part of civil society that remained inside Russia and the exiled community working in Europe. Memorial operated on both sides of this new “Iron Curtain”, with these interconnected networks supporting one another through shared expertise, resources and solidarity. Now that connection has been completely severed. Memorial can no longer operate in Russia in any form. The Putin regime has systematically targeted every chain of solidarity, whether real or merely perceived. What we are witnessing now is the deliberate destruction of ties between people associated with Memorial inside Russia and those living in free countries. This means that we now have even more reason to continue fighting for the day when Memorial can once again become whole.

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