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In a letter addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, 580+ members of Russian civil society voice their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine and urge an immediate end to the war.

On 28 February 2022, Human Rights House Foundation delivered a statement on Russia during the 134th session of the Human Rights Committee, the treaty body of the ICCPR, currently reviewing Russia.

Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF) calls on the international community to take immediate and decisive steps at the United Nations in response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces. These actions are the devastating continuation of gross human rights violations committed by Russia domestically and internationally and the international community must respond. Immediate and decisive action must be taken within United Nations human rights bodies.

HRHF calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities, respect for international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and the strongest possible support for human rights and human rights defenders, in Ukraine by the international community.

The human rights crisis perpetrated by the Russian authorities is not limited to Russian territory. The crisis is spilling beyond Russia’s borders.

On the morning of 7 October 2021, 15 years after Anna Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator in her apartment building where she lived in Moscow, a colleague and I laid flowers on the corner of Drammensveien in Oslo, where the Russian embassy is located.

It became known on November 11, 2021, that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation filed a lawsuit to wind up Memorial International for allegedly systematic violations of the law on “foreign agents”. The organization is accused of not labelling its materials with a reference to its “foreign agent” status.

The environment for human rights defenders and organisations in Russia is increasingly dire. In this report, Human Rights House Foundation outlines the impact of the sweeping crackdown and use of increasingly restrictive and repressive legislation in Russia on the work of Russian civil society domestically and internationally, providing recommendations to the international community and the Russian authorities.

When US President Joe Biden stood in the East Room of the White House on September 15 flanked by television screens with the images of Australian Prime Minister Morrison and British Prime Minister Johnson, a new geopolitical trend came into stark relief for European policymakers. As many analysts subsequently noted, the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral security pact between the US, UK, and Australia underscored the fragility of European security, the need for greater emphasis on building strategic autonomy, and the fact that a strengthened European Union policy towards Russia, its biggest strategic competitor, is vital. Human rights must now play a central role in the design and implementation of an updated EU-Russia Strategic Policy.