At least 69 people subjected to politically motivated persecution have died in Russia since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At least 20 died as a result of torture and beatings, according to data published by the Memorial human rights group in a report titled “Never to See Freedom.” The report was released Oct. 29, the day of “Returning the Names,” an annual remembrance event for victims of political repression in Russia. The figures include not only people who died in pretrial detention centers and penal colonies, but also those who died during searches, while under house arrest, or shortly after their release from custody.
According to the rights group’s figures, four people died under such circumstances in 2022, 10 in 2023, 26 in 2024, and 13 in 2025. In the first 10 months of 2026, 16 deaths had already been recorded. Of the 69 people who died, 63 were men and six were women, with an average age of around 51. The youngest were 18-year-old Ukrainians Daniil Dakhov and Pavel Grimak, who were abducted by Russian security forces in occupied Melitopol. The oldest was 81-year-old scientist Valery Mitko, who was accused of treason and died while under house arrest.
The rights group identified illness and the lack of timely medical care as the leading causes of death, accounting for 29 cases. Ten are believed to have died by suicide or in circumstances resembling suicide. The causes of eight deaths remain unknown. The report separately examines the death of pianist Pavel Kushnir after a hunger strike and the murder of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony.
Memorial’s figures do not include everyone killed during operations by Russian security services since February 2022. As calculated by the independent investigative outlet Important Stories, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had reported killing 87 people during detention operations between the start of the war and July 2026. In most cases, the agency claimed those killed had been preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence services. In other cases, the Russian authorities alleged that the deceased had links to Islamist terrorist organizations. The figures cannot simply be added to Memorial’s statistics as the studies cover different categories of deaths but may overlap.
Of the 16 deaths Memorial recorded in 2026, 10 were linked to illness and the absence of necessary medical care. The report describes judges and Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) staff ignoring complaints from seriously ill prisoners. One case involved 64-year-old Oleg Tyryshkin, who was sentenced to two years in a penal colony over a comment posted on VK, Russia’s largest social network. During an appeal hearing held by video link in March 2025, Tyryshkin lay down on the floor of his cell because he was unable to stand. A medic at the pretrial detention center said all his vital signs were normal, and the judge accused him of pretending. In February 2026, Tyryshkin died in a hospital after suffering a heart attack.
Another prisoner, 46-year-old Sergei Sviridov, had a progressive form of cancer, but courts denied his release three times despite requests from prison doctors. One of the courts’ arguments was that he had no family members who could care for him if he were released. Authorities agreed to free him only after he fell into a coma and could no longer breathe on his own. Two weeks later, on June 12, 2026, Sviridov died in a hospice.
The rights group devoted a separate section of the report to Ukrainian citizens who died after being detained by Russian security forces. Among them was journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who died in September 2024 after being held in Russian detention facilities. After her body was returned to Ukraine, experts found signs of torture and discovered that several of her internal organs were missing. Memorial stressed that its study does not include statistics for the countless Ukrainians held outside formal criminal proceedings. The number of deaths among that group may be significantly higher, but information about such cases is almost entirely unavailable.
The report’s authors said even official claims that prisoners died by suicide cannot be treated as reliable without independent verification. As one example, they cited the death of musician Anatoly Berezikov, who told his lawyer before his death that security officers had tortured him with electric shocks and threatened to kill him and make it look like a suicide. Authorities later declared suicide to be the official cause of death.
Memorial places responsibility for the deaths of victims of political repression not only on security officers and prison staff, but also on investigators, judges, doctors, and the Russian authorities more broadly. The report includes a list of all 69 people by name, along with the circumstances of their persecution and deaths.
