COLUMN: Seven Years for Two Tweets — Putin's Russia Devours Its Last Opponents

COLUMN: Seven Years for Two Tweets — Putin's Russia Devours Its Last Opponents

Introduction: On June 24, Russia Sentenced Truth to Seven Years in a Penal Colony

One man, two posts, and the Russian state as prosecutor

On June 24, 2026, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow delivered its verdict: Maxim Kruglov, 39 years old, vice-chairman of the liberal opposition party Yabloko and former deputy of the Moscow City Duma, was sentenced to seven years in an ordinary-regime penal colony. The sentence also carries a three-year ban on administering internet resources. His crime? Two posts on Telegram in 2022 in which he cited United Nations data on civilian casualties in Ukraine and included a photograph of the destroyed city of Mariupol.

Kruglov pleaded not guilty. He stated in court that the conflict in Ukraine is a tragedy that should end as quickly as possible. The prosecution had demanded eight years. It got seven. His lawyer immediately announced an appeal. But in Putin's Russia, appeals against political convictions have the lifespan of an illusion.

Yabloko: Russia's last legal opposition party, now in the crosshairs

Yabloko — "the apple" in Russian — is one of the few Russian political parties to have maintained a public position opposing the war in Ukraine. Born in the 1990s from the rubble of the USSR, it survived two decades of progressive marginalisation, losing its seats in the federal parliament, its resources, and its influence. But it survived. It remains the only party legally registered in Russia that openly calls for an immediate end to hostilities.

For that reason, it is now in the Kremlin's sights. Amnesty International has documented that nine party members face criminal proceedings, that dozens have been held in administrative detention, and that 12 officials have been labelled "foreign agents," barring them from the upcoming State Duma elections scheduled for September 2026. The timing is no accident: it is a political cleansing operation before the vote.

The Legal Machinery of Silence: Article 207.3 as a State Weapon

Criminal law transformed into an instrument of repression

Kruglov's conviction rests on Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, adopted in March 2022 — just days after the launch of the full-scale invasion — which punishes the dissemination of "false information" about the Russian army. The law does not clearly define what constitutes "false information": in practice, anything that contradicts the Kremlin's official narrative can fall under its scope.

In the Kruglov case, the two incriminating posts contained no fabrications or inventions. One cited United Nations statistics — a recognised international source — on civilian casualties. The other showed a documentary photograph of devastated Mariupol with a comment on civilian deaths. These are facts. Facts that Moscow chose to treat as crimes.

The arrest date: October 2025, in Saint Petersburg

Maxim Kruglov was arrested in October 2025 in Saint Petersburg. Shortly after his arrest, he was added to the Russian registry of "terrorists and extremists" — an administrative designation that closes his access to bank accounts and public services, and permanently stigmatises his family and those close to him. This machinery of systemic humiliation is characteristic of the regime: the punishment does not stop at the sentence — it extends across the condemned person's entire social existence.

In December 2025, another Yabloko co-chairman, Lev Shlosberg, was indicted on the same charges. The decapitation of the party is under way, methodical, planned. Nothing is left to chance in Putin's Russia when it comes to eliminating every dissenting voice before an electoral deadline.

Kruglov's Statements: A Dignity That Defies the Verdict

"This case shows that dissent is illegal"

Before the court, Maxim Kruglov made no attempt to soften his positions. He said what he thought with the clarity of a man who knows his words will be read by history as much as by the judges: "This case shows that the authorities will not tolerate anyone who disagrees with them." It is a plain formulation, free of bombast, but surgically precise about the nature of the regime that judges him.

He also said he remained opposed to the war and believed that Russia would one day be a country at peace. That conviction, in the context of his sentencing, reads as both a political act of faith and a deliberate affront to those who imprisoned him. His lawyer noted that the seven years pronounced represent a reduction from the maximum sentence sought by the prosecution — a small gesture from Russian justice toward form, without changing the substance.

Sergei Mitrokhin: "A return to the darkest hours"

Former Yabloko chairman Sergei Mitrokhin did not mince words after the verdict: "I believe this is a return to the darkest hours." The formulation is grave. It implicitly evokes the Soviet era of show trials, purges, and institutional repression of thought. What Mitrokhin is saying is that Russia is no longer sliding toward authoritarianism — it is fully embedded within it.

The leadership of Amnesty International, through the voice of Marie Struthers, director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, was even more direct: Kruglov was imprisoned "not for any recognisable criminal offence, but simply for expressing his views and calling for an investigation into alleged war crimes." It is an unequivocal condemnation of the political nature of this trial.

Ukraine from the Inside: The SBU Arrests Eight Pro-Russian Propagandists

Eight people charged with supporting Russian strikes from within Ukrainian territory

In the same register of suppressing voices that undermine the war effort — but in a radically different context — the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced in June 2026 the arrest of eight people charged with applauding Russian strikes from inside the country and spying for Moscow. These individuals face charges of war propaganda and attempted seizure of state power.

The comparison between these two cases — Kruglov in Russia, the eight in Ukraine — is instructive and deserves to be drawn with care. In Ukraine, people are being arrested who, from a country at war, were actively encouraging an invader's strikes against their own population — an activity that constitutes treason in any wartime jurisdiction. In Russia, a man is imprisoned for citing the UN.

The difference in nature between democratic wartime repression and systemic authoritarianism

It would be intellectually dishonest to equate Ukrainian wartime security measures with Russia's systemic repression of opposition. Ukraine, despite the extraordinary constraints of war, maintains a functioning judicial system, a free press, electoral processes, and an active civil society. SBU arrests are subject to judicial and public scrutiny.

In Russia, political convictions like Kruglov's are designed to be irreversible, to send an intimidating message, and to physically remove from public life those who dare to contradict the Putin narrative. These are not two sides of the same coin — they are two fundamentally different regimes in their relationship to truth, law, and freedom.

Yabloko Facing Extinction: A Party That Refuses to Die

From the 1990s to the margins of illegality

Yabloko was founded in 1993 under the impetus of political scientist Grigory Yavlinsky, who had earlier developed an economic transition plan for the failing USSR. In the 1990s, the party was a representative political force of liberal Russia — the party of intellectuals, academics, and jurists. It progressively lost influence as Putin consolidated power, losing its parliamentary seats in 2003 and never regaining them.

Today, Yabloko holds only a handful of seats in regional legislatures and none in the federal parliament. But it continues to exist legally, to publish its positions, to organise events. It is precisely this residual legal existence that makes it a target: Moscow has not yet found the legal pretext to formally dissolve it, but it is removing its leaders one by one, ahead of the September 2026 elections.

The 12 foreign agents: a pre-election disqualification

The "foreign agent" label is one of the Kremlin's most formidable weapons against political opposition. Assigned administratively, without trial, it bars those who carry it from standing for election, receiving funding, or working in many institutions. The 12 Yabloko officials labelled foreign agents ahead of the September 2026 elections will not be able to stand as candidates — a preventive electoral amputation that is perfectly legal under current Russian law.

This system of bureaucratic disqualification reveals the sophistication of modern Russian repression: no camps needed, no mass show trials — it is sufficient to use administrative law to render the opposition electorally sterile before the ballots are counted. More efficient, less internationally visible, and just as devastating for democracy.

The September 2026 Duma Elections: A Staged Farce

United Russia and its façade "opponents"

The Russian legislative elections scheduled for September 18, 19, and 20, 2026 will take place in a context of systemic repression of all genuine opposition. United Russia, the Kremlin's party, has put forward emblematic candidates: a war-wounded veteran of the Ukraine conflict and a pro-Putin war journalist — figures designed to capitalise on war nationalism. It is political theatre in service of an autocracy.

The parties authorised to participate — the Liberal Democrats, the Communists, Just Russia — have for years been pseudo-oppositions that vote almost systematically with the Kremlin on essential matters. They play the role of democratic window dressing in a façade system. The genuine opposition, with Yabloko at the fore, is being decapitated before the campaign even begins.

The postponement considered and rejected by the Kremlin

According to sources cited by Meduza, Russian officials had considered postponing the Duma elections due to Ukrainian strikes on Moscow. That option was rejected by the Kremlin — probably because a postponement would have signalled a weakness Putin cannot afford. The decision to maintain the original electoral calendar is political: it asserts that Russia is functioning normally, that the war does not affect the country's (fictitious) democratic life.

This façade of normalcy is itself a message: Putin wants to show his public, and the world, that Ukraine cannot disrupt Russia's institutional functioning. Whether bombs fall on Moscow or not, the elections will proceed. It is a demonstration of regime resilience — resilience achieved through total control, not popular trust.

The Spreading Repression: Beyond Yabloko

Hundreds imprisoned for their opinions

Amnesty International specified that Maxim Kruglov is "the latest in hundreds of people targeted in Russia for expressing anti-war views." That figure is staggering. Hundreds of ordinary Russian citizens — teachers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, engineers — are rotting in prisons or penal colonies for a social media comment, a placard at a protest, a private conversation reported by an informant.

This mass repression is not visible from outside in the same way as the bombardment of Kyiv. It happens in discreet courtrooms, in remote prisons, in silent administrative procedures. But its effects on Russian society run deep: it creates widespread self-censorship, a public silence about the war, and a growing inability to collectively imagine any alternative to the current regime.

The young Vesna activists: twelve years for organising protests

The Kruglov case is not isolated. In April 2026, the Saint Petersburg City Court sentenced six young activists of the democratic movement Vesna to sentences ranging from six to twelve years in prison for organising protests. Anna Arkhipova received twelve years. These young people, at the start of their adult lives, will see their youth pass behind bars for exercising a fundamental civic right.

The brutality of these sentences is calculated. It aims to terrorise an entire generation of potentially dissenting Russians, to show them what awaits them if they dare raise their heads. It is stick policy pushed to its extreme — not to punish the guilty, but to prevent the innocent from becoming guilty by exercising their rights.

The Russian Diaspora and Voices in Exile

Meduza, Novaya Gazeta Europa: free journalism beyond the borders

Russia's free media landscape has gone into exile. Meduza, based in Riga, Novaya Gazeta Europa, Reuters correspondents operating from outside — these are the structures that document, from exile, convictions like Kruglov's. Their work is indispensable: without them, Russian political trials would unfold in total darkness.

But they face a double challenge: their reporting rarely reaches ordinary Russians, whose access to independent internet is increasingly throttled by Kremlin filters. And their exile cuts them off from certain internal sources, even if clandestine networks continue to function. The information battle is a parallel war to the one on the Ukrainian front — less visible, but just as vital.

The impact of sanctions on Russian civil society

Western sanctions against Russia are officially designed to weaken Putin's war economy. But they also have an unintended side effect on Russian civil society: by impoverishing the urban middle class — the natural reservoir of liberal opposition — they paradoxically reinforce the economic conditions that foster nationalist sentiment and the rallying behind Putin. That is a genuine strategic dilemma that Western decision-makers cannot ignore.

That is not an argument to lift sanctions — they remain necessary to constrain the Russian war machine. But it should prompt reflection on mechanisms to support Russian civil society in exile and internal resistance networks, so that the post-Putin Russia of tomorrow can build on something viable.

The Implications for Peace Negotiations

Can one negotiate with a regime that imprisons those who cite the UN?

Maxim Kruglov's conviction comes at a moment when some Western capitals continue to contemplate peace negotiations with Russia. The question deserves to be asked directly: is it possible to conclude a lasting peace agreement with a regime that criminalises the citation of UN data and imprisons its political opponents a few months before legislative elections?

The realistic answer is complex. In the history of peace treaties, democracies have signed agreements with dictatorships. But such agreements only hold if the signatory regime has an internal structure that compels it to honour its commitments. A regime that devours its own critics to silence them offers no such structural guarantees.

The credibility of Russian commitments under Putin

The Minsk I and Minsk II agreements showed what Russian commitments in conflict resolution are worth. Moscow systematically used them as tactical pauses to rearm, reposition its forces, and prepare the next phase of aggression. Any negotiation with the Putin regime must incorporate that structural reality: written guarantees mean nothing against a power that ignores international law when it suits them.

Freedom of expression in Russia and the security of Ukraine are more deeply linked than they appear. A regime that can imprison Kruglov for citing the UN can just as easily deny any peace commitment the moment conditions turn unfavourable. It is the same logic: reality bends to the Kremlin's will, not the other way around.

The International Community Facing Repression: Denouncing Without Acting?

Communiqués and condemnations without consequences

Maxim Kruglov's conviction prompted condemnation statements from Amnesty International, various human rights NGOs, and likely from Western chancelleries. These reactions are necessary — they maintain normative pressure on Russia and document violations for the historical record. But their practical effectiveness on the behaviour of the Putin regime is close to zero.

Moscow long ago decided that international condemnations are an acceptable cost compared to the internal political benefits of removing opponents. This displayed indifference is itself part of the message sent to the Russian population: we do not fear the West, their protests change nothing, we do what we judge necessary.

Targeted sanctions against judges and prosecutors: an under-exploited avenue

One avenue that deserves greater exploration by Western governments is that of individually targeted sanctions against judges who hand down political convictions and prosecutors who demand disproportionate sentences. The judge of the Zamoskvoretsky court who convicted Kruglov, the prosecutor who demanded eight years — their names are known, and any bank accounts or properties they hold in the West could be targeted.

This type of targeted sanction, provided for under the American Magnitsky Act and equivalent European legislation, does not change the regime — but it sends a personal signal to those who actively participate in the repression. And it creates a precedent that might make some Russian state agents more hesitant to deliver politically motivated convictions in the future.

The Russian History of Political Prisoners: A Repeating Cycle

From Sakharov to Navalny to Kruglov: the same logic

The history of Russian political prisoners is long and tragic. Andrei Sakharov, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, placed under house arrest in Gorky under Brezhnev. Soviet dissidents of the 1970s and 1980s, interned in psychiatric hospitals for "raving" about freedom. Alexei Navalny, poisoned, imprisoned, dead in detention in February 2024. And now Maxim Kruglov, sentenced to seven years for two posts on Telegram.

This cycle is no surprise — it is a continuity. Russia has never genuinely broken with its tradition of criminalising dissenting thought. The windows of relative freedom under Gorbachev and in the early Yeltsin years closed again. Putin systematically rebuilt the instruments of political repression, dressing them in modern legal forms.

Memory as resistance

Faced with this well-oiled repression machine, the only durable antidote is memory. Documenting every conviction, naming every judge, recording every sentence, archiving every statement by the condemned — that is the work done by organisations like Amnesty International, Memorial (before its forced dissolution), OVD-Info, and dozens of others. This memory work is not merely historical — it is an active form of resistance against the erasure the Kremlin seeks to impose.

Maxim Kruglov has entered the penal colony. But his name has appeared in Amnesty International communiqués, in Reuters dispatches, in statements by the Yabloko party. He will not be erased. And when the time of reckoning comes — and it always comes — his name will be in the archives of those who resisted.

The Signal for Russian Opposition in Exile

A clear message: come back, and here is what awaits you

Kruglov's conviction — he lived in Russia and had not sought exile — sends a chilling message to Russian dissidents abroad: if you return, this is what awaits you. Russia is no longer only shooting those who flee. It is imprisoning those who choose to stay and resist from within — perhaps out of hope, perhaps out of attachment to their fellow citizens.

This reality further isolates Russia's internal resistance, which loses its most courageous members one by one. Every high-profile arrest convinces more potential dissidents that there is no viable legal path, that political struggle through proper channels is suicidal. The only apparent choices are exile, silence, or prison.

The West's responsibility toward Russian opposition in exile

The West cannot make choices for Russians living under the Putin regime. But it can — and should — do more to support exile opposition structures: funding free media like Meduza, providing resources to human rights organisations documenting political prisoners, creating fast-track asylum pathways for threatened dissidents. This support has strategic value: it is an investment in the post-Putin Russia of tomorrow.

Because that Russia will come one day — perhaps not tomorrow, perhaps not in five years, but it will come. And when it looks for foundations on which to rebuild a viable democracy, it will need the Kruglovs, the Shlosbergs, the journalists of Meduza, the Vesna activists. Preserving them today is investing in that possibility.

The Extraordinary Courage of Internal Witnesses: Those Who Did Not Flee

Staying in Russia and criticising the war: an exceptional act of bravery

We must name courage at its proper value. Maxim Kruglov was aware of the risks. He had seen what happened to other opponents — arbitrary arrests, fast-tracked trials, disproportionate sentences. And yet he stayed. He remained in Russia, maintained his public party position, kept speaking — cautiously, carefully, but clearly. That choice to stay rather than flee is, in the current Russian context, an extraordinary act of civil resistance.

Russians who flee are courageous in their own way: they give up their former lives, often their families, their roots. But those who stay and keep speaking, like Kruglov, assume an even more immediate and personal risk. They offer their freedom, their future, and sometimes their health to the cause of truth. This form of internal resistance deserves to be recognised and celebrated by the West.

The Yabloko movement as the symbolic guarantor of an alternative Russia

Even weakened, decapitated of its leaders, stripped of resources, and labelled "foreign agent" in its own ranks, Yabloko continues to exist. That fact is remarkable in itself given the current Russian political context. It is proof that a liberal political tradition exists in Russia that refuses to disappear entirely, even under overwhelming coercive pressure.

This symbolic persistence has strategic value. It keeps visible, in the Russian public space, the idea that a different politics is possible — that the war is not inevitable, that freedom of expression is not a Western luxury, that democracy can have genuine Russian roots. As long as Yabloko exists, even marginalised, that idea survives. And ideas sometimes outlast the regimes that seek to crush them.

Russian War Propaganda and the Counter-Narrative Effort

RT, Sputnik, and the army of pro-Kremlin influencers

While Kruglov is convicted for citing facts, the Russian propaganda machine runs at full speed. RT broadcasts in 30 languages. Networks of pro-Kremlin influencers flood social media in France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere with narratives favourable to Moscow. These influence operations are state-funded, sophisticated in execution, and precisely targeted at Western democracies.

The asymmetry is striking: in Russia, free information is blocked and those who try to share facts are punished. In the West, Russian propaganda circulates freely in the name of free expression. This is not naivety — it is a strategic flaw that the Kremlin has exploited with remarkable effectiveness for years.

Countering disinformation without sacrificing freedom: the democratic challenge

The challenge for Western democracies is finding ways to counter Russian propaganda without replicating the Kremlin's authoritarian methods. Banning RT was necessary in the context of the war — but it is an exceptional measure, not a general model. The real answer is media literacy education, funding independent journalism, and supporting media in Russian diaspora languages like Meduza or Novaya Gazeta Europa.

This is where Kruglov's conviction connects to broader Western strategic stakes: by eliminating Russian internal voices that produce authentic information about the realities of the regime, Russia is not only repressing dissent — it is removing crucial information sources that help the West understand what is actually happening inside the country. It is an informational victory for Moscow, and a strategic defeat for those who want to understand Russia from within.

Conclusion: The Russia That Convicts Truth Condemns Its Own Future

A regime that kills its Cassandras

A regime that imprisons those who tell the truth does not eliminate truth — it merely deprives itself of those who might help it navigate reality. Maxim Kruglov said the war is a tragedy, that it must end, that civilians are dying. That is not subversion: it is simple common sense. By silencing him, Putin's Russia removes the voices that could, tomorrow, help the country find its way out of the dead end this war has driven it into.

Empires that kill their Cassandras are the ones that collapse without seeing it coming. The Russia of 2026 is accumulating the signs of an economy under strain, an exhausted society, and a regime that can only sustain itself by silencing those who doubt. That is not strength — it is institutionalised fear. And fear, in politics as in geopolitics, is an edifice that always eventually collapses.

For Maxim Kruglov and all the others

This column ends with a name: Maxim Kruglov. 39 years old. Professor of comparative political science. Vice-chairman of Yabloko. Former deputy of the Moscow City Duma. Sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for writing the truth on Telegram in 2022. He did not recant. He said he believed that Russia would one day be a country at peace. That conviction, in his context, is a remarkable act of resistance. It deserves to be saluted, remembered, and carried until the doors of his penal colony finally open.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Declared biases

I am deeply hostile to the Putin regime and the systemic repression of dissent in Russia. This column reflects that without equivocation. I do not claim neutrality on this subject: I believe freedom of expression is a fundamental right and that regimes that crush it deserve to be named and condemned. My tone is deliberately militant on this point.

Method and sources

This column draws on reporting from Al Jazeera, Meduza, Reuters via Internazionale, Amnesty International, the official Yabloko website, and other secondary sources. I have had no access to the legal files, nor have I spoken to Kruglov or his lawyers. Everything I assert is based on documented, verifiable sources. On the SBU situation and the eight arrests, I relied on information from the Kyiv Independent, with the limitations that the unavailability of certain pages may have imposed.

Sources

Primary sources

Al Jazeera — Russian opposition leader jailed over anti-war social media posts — 2026-06-25

Yabloko — Court sentences Yabloko Deputy Chairman Maxim Kruglov to seven years in a penal colony — 2026-06-24

Amnesty International — Russia: Authorities continue to crackdown on dissent — 2026-06-26

Secondary sources

Meduza — Moscow court sentences Yabloko deputy chair to seven years for posts about Russian atrocities — 2026-06-24

Internazionale/Reuters — Russian anti-war politician jailed for seven years over social media posts — 2026-06-24

ProtoThema — Russian opposition politician sentenced to seven years over posts about the war — 2026-06-24

Amnesty International — Russia: Imprisoned young anti-war activists must be immediately released — 2026-04-08

Kyiv Independent — Ukraine arrests eight people accused of cheering on Russian strikes and spying — 2026-06-23