‘It’s the KGB method’: How Putin cracked down on Russian NGOs

“You will never accept today’s situation if it falls suddenly,” breathes Aglaé, a documentalist and member of Memorial. Since Putin came to power, the Russian NGO, Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, is according to her the typical example of a repression with KGB sauce.

It must be said that Memorial, born in 1987 to document the repression of the Soviet regime, has known everything: perestroika, the collapse of the USSR, hope, the wars in Chechnya, Putin, doubt, the first obstacles, dramas…

In 2009, the assassination of the head of Memorial’s office in Chechnya, Natalia Estemirova, was a turning point. The crime remains unsolved to this day. In 2012, the law on “foreign agents” became the Kremlin’s favorite tool to gag any organization seen as a political adversary. Story, in video, of this perfume of freedom so quickly vanished, with in particular the testimony of Anastasia Garina, executive director of Memorial.

Opinions

The Time.news of Aurélien Saussay

By Aurélien Saussay, researcher at the London School of Economics, environmental economist specializing in energy transition issues

The Time.news of Cécile Maisonneuve

By Cécile Maisonneuve, President of DECYSIVE and Advisor to the Energy-Climate Center of IFRI

Chronic

Par Marion Van Renthergem

The Time.news of Frédéric Filloux

Frederic Filloux