Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime has persecuted at least 116,000 in just the last six years, Russian outlet Proekt estimates in a study released on February 22 dedicated to the memory of opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny.That is more than were persecuted under both Communist General Secretaries Leonid Brezhnev or NIkita Khrushchev during the post-Stalin-era.

“As part of our major study, we examined both criminal and administrative cases that reached the courts in 2018-2023, i.e. during Putin’s entire fourth term. It turned out that by even the most conservative estimate, at least 116 thousand people were subjected to some form of persecution over that period,” Proekt said on its website.

The analysis scrutinized both criminal and administrative cases that reached the courts and identified 5,613 individuals prosecuted under laws traditionally viewed by human rights activists as repressive, including charges of extremism, terrorism justification, and dissemination of false information.

When expanded to include those punished for objecting to the Ukraine conflict and those accused of state treason or espionage, the tally of repressed individuals climbs to 11,442.

“Both of these figures are higher than those of the post-Stalin USSR, when people were tried under Articles 70 (“Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”) and 190 (“Dissemination of knowingly false fabrications that defame the Soviet state and social system”) of the Soviet Criminal Code. For instance, between 1956 and 1961 (we reviewed a six-year period in this case as well), 4,883 people were convicted under those articles. And in all the following years up to the Perestroika period (from 1962 to 1985) another 3,234 people were convicted,” Proekt said.

The Soviet-era practice of "prophylaxis," cover even more people, involving surveillance and warnings by the Cheka, who maintain dossiers on any Soviet citizen that showed up on the secret police’s radar. More than 120,000 people were affected between 1967 and 1974.

Proekt admits that there is no specific data on surveillance in Putin’s Russia, but administrative penalties for public statements and rally participation dished out by the courts affected approximately 105,000 people over the past six years, according to Proekt.

“In other words, today’s figures are once again comparable to those of the Soviet Union. This does not take into account the large number of people who were forced out of the country and lost their places of work and study over the last years,” Proekt said.

Chart of those fined or criminally charge on political grounds