Press Release, 12 January 2026

Photo: Pre-New Year letter-writing action at Moscow Yabloko / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

In the beginning of the new year, Yabloko summarises the results of its ongoing campaigns in 2025, including one of the most extensive and long-running – the action of writing letters to political prisoners. Each month, supporters and members of the party in dozens of Russian regions hold this event, regularly sending postcards and letters to support those facing criminal prosecution or imprisonment on politically motivated charges for their words, thoughts and responsible civic stance.

In 2025, participants in the actions signed and sent 12,374 letters and postcards to prisoners of conscience: that is, thanks to Yabloko, more than a thousand letters of support were sent to political prisoners each month throughout the year.

According to human rights defenders, there are currently 1,266 political prisoners in Russia; however, information from lawyers and activists suggests that the total number of criminal cases showing signs of political motivation exceeds 4,500 as of January 2026. Moreover, the number of such cases is growing, which means the number of political prisoners is increasing as well.

Yabloko’s long-running regular campaign of writing letters of support to political prisoners is held to ensure that those facing unlawful criminal charges do not remain alone with their troubles and feel supported – often even by unfamiliar authors of letters and postcards. The campaign is held every month across Russia: in dozens of regions, activists, supporters and members of Yabloko gather in the party’s offices, writing words of solidarity and sharing news in dozens or even hundreds of messages in a single evening.

Often the addressees are political prisoners unfamiliar to the authors personally. This, however, is unimportant – in their replies, prisoners (or those defendants awaiting trials outside detention centres) report that the letters achieve their main goal: they offer a sense of support, hope for freedom and peace for the innocent.

Thus, in 2025, thanks to the Yabloko campaign, 12,374 letters were sent. The majority were written in Moscow (3,964) and St Petersburg (3,492). The organisers of the campaign in Moscow note separately that the letters and postcards reached 1,259 people.

Photo: Pre-New Year evening of writing letters to political prisoners at the Moscow Yabloko / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Everyone understands that the conditions in Russian detention centres and prisons alone represent a form of torture, and the solidarity shown by participants in the letter-writing actions is literally vital to political prisoners, emphasises Anna Shatunovskaya-Byurno, the campaign organiser in Moscow. She notes that prisoners’ replies often express the thought: Yabloko is the only political force in Russia fighting for peace and for the release of all those imprisoned for their convictions.

“Thank you so much for your letters and postcards,” Svetlana Marina, convicted for her social media posts, wrote to the St Petersburg Yabloko office in September. “They helped me to hold on, not to become entangled in the web of various restrictions and rules, remember who I am and what I live for. […] Those who remain free and support people in trouble do far more. Therefore, I wish you every success in your work. Write letters – it is very important.”

Support through letters is often the only legal way to remind political prisoners that they have not been forgotten. As Yabloko Deputy Chairman Lev Shlosberg noted from Pskov Pre-trial Detention Centre No. 1 in a letter to journalist Arina Borodina, letters are “support of enormous power”:

“Letters arrive… This is support of enormous power… I understand very well and experience myself how life-giving and saving these rays of warmth, light and understanding are. This is how civil society lives in our country now – on these atoms of love, understanding, solidarity and inner freedom… Every word of your warm letter warms my heart and strengthens my resolve.”

It should be noted that Lev Shlosberg has been arrested in connection with one of three criminal cases in which he has been made a defendant for his active stance and defence of the rights and interests of Pskov Region residents. Besides him, eight other prominent Yabloko representatives are under criminal prosecution, including Deputy Chairman Maxim Kruglov (Moscow), journalist Mikhail Afanasyev (Khakassia), leader of Kamchatka Yabloko Vladimir Yefimov, and leader of Ryazan Yabloko Konstantin Smirnov.

Letter-writing evenings at Yabloko offices often go beyond general support and may be dedicated to specific criminal cases or even unlawful proceedings outside the list of political prisoners. For instance, last summer in Moscow, activists signed postcards with a single question “Where is Seda?”, bearing in mind the importance of investigating the disappearance of Chechen girl Seda Suleymanova. Her whereabouts have been unknown for several years, and law enforcement agencies not only remained inactive but regularly detained activists and friends of Seda who were trying to find her.

However, in the overwhelming majority of cases – in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Pskov, Veliky Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and many other cities – the action of writing letters to political prisoners managed to produce from several dozen to several hundred postcards at once. But one of the main events of the year typically was the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. On this tragic date, Yabloko annually holds an all-Russian marathon of reading out the names of victims of Stalinist terror and simultaneously an action of writing letters to today’s political prisoners.

Photo: One of the summer letter-writing evenings at the party office in Yekaterinburg

Moreover, Yabloko’s charitable auctions are particularly important for the letter-writing evenings. Thanks to them, hundreds of thousands of roubles are raised every six months, which are then transferred to specific families of political prisoners to pay for lawyers’ work, prepare expert assessments for court proceedings and arrange parcels to detention centres and prisons. Thus, the charitable auction on 13 November helped eight families, and thanks to well-known donors and hundreds of buyers, the campaign raised 1,308,000 roubles. In total, since the auctions began, Yabloko has raised more than 10.7 million roubles to help families of political prisoners.

Photo: Postcard from political prisoner Yelena Abramova

Almost all of today’s political prisoners have suffered for their words, for their publications, for their pursuit of peace, and the monthly, ever-expanding campaign of writing letters to political prisoners is a common cause for the freedom of the innocent, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov believes. He emphasises that since 2022, “solidarity” and “support” have become amongst the most important words for Russians, and all of Yabloko’s work is now dedicated to one thing – the return of peace: so that people are not killed anymore, so that the country has a chance for a future, and so that people in Russia are not persecuted for peaceful convictions.

It should be noted that the announcement of the action of writing letters to political prisoners, which includes dates as well as a list of cities and addresses of Yabloko offices, is published on the party’s website every month after the 15th. The schedule is regularly updated.

If one is unable to come to a Yabloko office, the party asks to write a letter to a political prisoner independently, using our instructions.

A person who finds themselves in detention loses physical connection with the information space and often faces fear and loneliness. Showing attention, expressing words of support, offering emotions and telling the news – this is important and valuable help for a person in detention. Even if one does not know personally the addressee, just one letter can inspire, support and even save.