Activists from Russian civil rights organization Memorial have visited Ukraine to investigate alleged human rights violations by Russia on the ground, the group’s co-founder said on Tuesday.
Oleg Orlov said that the trip had been organized together with Ukrainian human rights activists from Kharkiv. It was one of the first publicized contacts between the civil societies of Ukraine and Russia in more than three years of war.
“This trip was very important for me,” said Orlov, who was released from prison in Russia in 2024 after being jailed for protesting against the war. He now lives in exile in Berlin.
In January, the Memorial Group visited the Ukrainian regions of Kiev, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Odessa, Mykolaiv and Kherson and spoke to the victims of alleged Russian human rights violations, Orlov said. “It was difficult for them to talk to us. But they spoke to us,” he said of Ukrainians’ reactions to the Russian activists.
Russian destruction recalls Syria or Chechnya
The stories of shelling of civilian structures, illegal arrests, torture and secret prisons sounded familiar to the human rights activists from other Russian wars.
“The ruins of Mariupol were preceded by the ruins of Aleppo [Syria] and Grozny in Chechnya,” said Orlov.
“In the occupied territories, the Russian state power rules with a system of state terror,” said Vladimir Malykhin from the Memorial Centre for Human Rights Protection.
The violence is deliberate and systematic, he said. “This is the hand of the state.” In the event of a possible peace agreement, it is essential that both sides release all prisoners, he added.
Ukraine currently bans Russian citizens from entering the country due to the war. But the Ukrainian authorities made an exception for the Memorial trip, according to host Yevhen Zakharov, head of a Kharkiv human rights group.
