Press Release, 3.11.2025

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On 3 November 2025, Valery Borshchev, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee, leader of the Human Rights Faction, and co-chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, passed away at the age of 82, after a prolonged illness.

Soviet dissident and Russian politician, human rights defender and journalist, symbol of freedom and human dignity — this was and will forever remain Valery Vasilyevich Borshchev. He was friends with Academician Andrei Sakharov and stood at the origins of Russia’s oldest human rights organization — the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG). He participated in negotiations with militants in Chechnya, striving to stop military action and save people. He represented Yabloko in the State Duma, devoting enormous attention to protecting the rights of prisoners and problems of the penitentiary system.

One of Valery Borshchev’s victories in the human rights field was the development and subsequent adoption of a federal law, thanks to which on 1 September 2008 a unique institution emerged in Russia — Public Monitoring Commissions that inspected prisons, which became the eyes and ears of society behind the walls of prisons and remand prisons. Valery Borshchev subsequently headed the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission and gained the opportunity to visit and help prisoners, the majority of whom nobody cared about. He continued this work later as a member of the Moscow Region Public Monitoring Commission.

He was part of many councils and consultative bodies whose work concerned human rights — Borshchev regarded this as an opportunity to influence the fates of hundreds of thousands of people grinded up or ignored the system. Chairman of the Standing Chamber for Human Rights under the President, Chairman of the Antimilitarist Radical Association, member of the Board of Directors of the Russian branch of the International Association for Religious Freedom, member of the Council for Interaction with Religious Associations under the President, member of the International Non-Governmental Tribunal on Crimes Against Humanity in Chechnya, and member of the Council of the “For Human Rights” human rights movement. In each of these bodies, Valery Borshchev calmly, gently and persistently defended the main thing — the value of human life and freedom.

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov emphasises that Valery Borshchev was from a generation that remembers the price of freedom, so when the country faced changes, he not only did not remain an idle observer, he took action — in his unique manner of decisiveness and gentleness. First as an MP and one of the first democrats, then — as leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and member of the Yabloko party.

“For us he always has been and will remain a bridge, a connecting link, between the era of Acad. Sakharov and contemporary human rights defenders,” says Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov. “Valery Borshchev never crushed an opponent in the courtroom or at a protest rally, because he never saw them as an enemy. But he firmly believed in the power of negotiation and dialogue, and therefore opposed injustice unwaveringly, persistently, honestly and always moreover gently, diplomatically. He saw his mission in defending political prisoners, victims of arbitrariness, in defending the Constitution, which for him was not simply text, but a social contract, a guarantee and promise given to every citizen. He instilled this value in all of us.”

The funeral service and farewell to Valery Vasilyevich Borshchev will take place at the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God on Lyshchikova Gora on Sunday, 9 November, at 12:00. Address: Lyshchikov pereulok, 10.

Watch a film about Valery Borschchev “Living in Peace with Oneself”:

Valery Borschyov

Co-Chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Co-Chairman of the Human Rights Faction of Yabloko. Member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko.