Putin is crushing the last voices of dissent

Hardly a day goes by without another political arrest in Russia. Under President Vladimir Putin, the scale of repression against those who disagree with the Kremlin has surpassed anything seen in our country since the death of Joseph Stalin. According to a recent United Nations report, some 60 politically motivated criminal cases are opened against Russian citizens every month. The number of known political prisoners in Russia (more than 1,700) already exceeds the respective figure for the whole of the Soviet Union — that is, 15 present-day countries together — in the mid-1980s. And the leading cause of political imprisonment in Russia is continuing protest against the war in Ukraine.