Activists, everyday Russians and a soldier punished for war talk

In another sign of Moscow’s punishing crackdown on those who question its war in Ukraine, the 69-year-old veteran human rights campaigner Oleg Orlov was detained this week on charges of “repeatedly discrediting the armed forces”.

If convicted, he could serve up to three years in prison.

Orlov co-chaired Memorial, Russia’s leading human rights organisation, which has chronicled abuses from the Soviet era to the present until it was outlawed two years ago. Even after its closure, the organisation, including Orlov, carried on working under a different name.

“The struggle for peace has become a crime and of course, [we] are very worried for Oleg,” Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of Memorial, told Al Jazeera.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the Kremlin has tightened the screws on critics.

According to the human rights monitor OVD-Info, at least 482 people have been charged under Russia’s strict new wartime censorship laws. Some 136 have been sent to prison.