Russia has entered a time when human rights work is increasingly treated by the state not as a public good, but as a pretext for accusation—not “defending the law,” but “suspicious activity.” The story of Ural lawyer and human rights defender Alexey Sokolov shows this logic almost without disguise.

Sokolov was sent to pre-trial detention, and the public narrative contains a paradox: the perceived “danger” is not what happens inside the penitentiary system, but that someone speaks about it. In the wording of the accusation it looks brutally cynical: “He told foreign organizations about human rights violations”—and this is presented as a “threat to state security.”

According to Sokolov, investigators claim he “endangered the security of the state by talking about torture and human rights violations in the FSIN system, ‘including to foreign organizations.’” In a normal legal order, torture is investigated; in the current one, the person who speaks about torture is investigated. This is how a new scale of “guilt” is constructed.

Level one: you engage in human rights work and become inconvenient. Level two: you refuse to stay silent and document abuses publicly. Level three: you inform international bodies, and it is framed as acting “against the state.” A human rights defender is easily recast as an “enemy,” a witness as a “traitor.”

A separate element is pressure through one’s circle: Sokolov says colleagues are used as leverage—effectively as hostages—to force him to stop. He emphasizes that he does not admit guilt and calls his work lawful:

“I was engaged in lawful activity, provided for by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, federal laws, and the Charter of the United Nations.”

That is why many draw comparisons with 1937—not as a literal copy, but as a recognizable principle: when the state’s priority is not to stop abuses, but to punish those who speak about them, and to silence everyone else.

Source: Telegram channel “SOTAvision.” Telegram