Welcome to the inaugural Free Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign newsletter
Issue #1, May 8, 2025
On February 13, 2024, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation sentenced prominent Russian socialist, anti-war activist and author Boris Kagarlitsky to five years jail for “justifying terrorism”.
The Free Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign is dedicated to winning freedom for Boris and all other anti-war prisoners in Russia. Welcome to our inaugural newsletter.
For those wanting more information on Boris’ case, we encourage you to read the fact sheet we recently uploaded at our website, FreeBoris.info.
There you will also see some of the high-profile supporters of our campaign, who were among the more than 20,000 signatures gathered worldwide as part of a petition campaign we ran last year.
On our website, you will also find a new section dedicated to profiling other anti-war and leftist political prisoners in the Russian Federation and the occupied territories whose stories rarely make the media.
We hope to spread awareness about their conditions and point out ways you can help free them.
Though behind bars, Boris continues to write about politics – we have been collecting his prison letters and articles – and speak out for anti-war and left-wing political prisoners.
On March 5, he sent supporters a recorded message demanding that the release of the thousands of political prisoners in the Russian Federation be negotiated as part of any agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump over Ukraine.
Boris wrote,
this is not just an issue for us, those who are behind the bars, those who are imprisoned. It is an issue for Russia for the future of the country and the future of Europe.
OVD-Info latest report, Persecution of the anti-war movement: Three Years into Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine, documents the 20,081 detentions for anti-war stances in Russia that occurred between February 24, 2022 and February 17, 2025.
Given its importance, a link to the report is provided on our website’s news section.
There you can also find a link to PEN America’s Freedom to Write Index 2024, which among other cases has highlighted Boris’ plight. Dedicated to highlighting the number of writers jailed worldwide, PEN America said of Boris’ case:
Several other writers already in pre-trial detention were sentenced during 2024, some convicted of spurious charges related to ‘terrorism.’ Author and sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky was initially sentenced to a 600,000 ruble fine without prison time, but on appeal he was handed a five year sentence in a penal colony for his writing on the charge of ‘justifying terrorism’.
April brought the sad news that the Petrogradsky district court was sentencing 19-year-old activist Darya Kozyreva to 2 years and 8 months prison in a penal colony.
Daria was found guilty under Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code for repeatedly “discrediting” the army.
Daria had already spent more than a year in pre-trial detention for pasting a poem by Taras Shevchenko onto a statue of the Ukrainian poet and giving an anti-war interview.
Responding to Daria’s sentencing, the Leftist Political Prisoners’ Support Fund said in a statement we have linked to on our news page,
Daria is only 19. For her anti-war stance they want to break her, deprive her of freedom and future.
But our solidarity is stronger than their repression.
We do not forget, we do not keep silent, we do not give up.
✊ Freedom to Daria Kozyreva!
📢 Freedom to all political prisoners!
We leave you with some quotes from an important article Boris recently sent from jail, “Waiting for Russia’s spring”.
Boris's article focus on the “underlying processes” reshaping the balance of power in Russian society and the important role that the campaign to free Russia’s political prisoners and these prisoners could play in Russia’s future.
Boris writes:
… The growing number of political prisoners also points to rising dissent. Moreover, their social and cultural profile has changed dramatically. Previously, a typical political prisoner was a young member of the intelligentsia, but today, more and more of those incarcerated are middle-aged, often less formally educated, and engaged in physical labour. Their political views differ significantly from those of the urban liberal opposition. For example, they tend to view the Soviet past far more positively, especially its social policies. In this sense, the protest movement is becoming more popular, more socially driven, and more leftist.
… Activists who [have] remained in Russia, along with groups abroad that maintained connections with them, [have] fostered an environment of solidarity and mutual aid. Supporting political prisoners [has become] a key focus of their activities. People raise funds, send care packages, and write thousands of letters to express solidarity with those behind bars. The experience of fundraising for prisoners has demonstrated the emergence of a self-sustaining culture — one that operates without foreign grants, oligarch subsidies or state support...
If change begins [in Russia], society itself will put forward new leaders. Some of them are currently sitting in trenches in Ukraine, others are working to sustain local initiatives or preserve the remnants of independent media. Today’s political prisoners may find themselves at the forefront of efforts to build new social institutions and clean out the Augean stables of accumulated problems. They are prepared to work toward transforming their country and the world.
But for now, they need support and solidarity above all else. From there, events will take their natural course.
How this unfolds is well known from Russian history.
Like Boris, we urge supporters to show their support and solidarity to today’s political prisoners and take whatever action may help free them.