Russia

143 million people
10,730 USD GNI (PPP)
Internet:
Partly Free
Press:
Not Free
Not Free

Population and GNI data source

News & Updates

In the News

No help on Syria will come from Russia

May 18 2013 - 10:03am

Can everyone please stop pretending that Russia can be a partner with the United States and others in solving the crisis in Syria? Recently, there has been a flurry of visits to Moscow by senior Western and U.N. officials: U.S. national security adviser Tom Donilon was there in mid-April, followed by Secretary of State John F. Kerry in early May, then British Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Click here to read David J. Kramer's Washington Post op-ed.

Issues: 
Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia, Middle East and North Africa
Joint Letters

Letter Calls on Secretary Kerry to Highlight Importance of Civil Society in Russia

May 6 2013 - 3:16pm

In the following letter, Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Committee to Protect Journalists call on Secretary of State John Kerry to emphasize the importance of civil society in his upcoming visit to Russia.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Democratic Governance, Freedom of Association, Human Rights Defense, U.S. Foreign Policy
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia
Press Release

Russian Courts: An Instrument for Crushing Dissent, Not for Rule of Law

Apr 25 2013 - 5:17pm

Freedom House condemns the harsh sentence imposed today on political activist Konstantin Lebedev by a Russian court for allegedly organizing civil unrest during the May 6, 2012 protests in Moscow.  Lebedev, a defendant in the Bolotnaya Square case, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a penal colony. He was arrested in October 2012 after a pro-government documentary alleged that he was paid by a Georgian parliamentarian to recruit, train, and coordinate activists for the May 6 events.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Freedom of Association, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia
In the News

No time for White House to ignore Russia’s growing human rights abuses

Apr 25 2013 - 5:17pm

Overlooked amid the focus on the Boston bombings and the suspects’ links to Russia is the latest example of the systematic abuse of human rights under Vladi­mir Putin. Read David J. Kramer's Washington Post op-ed.

Issues: 
Freedom of Expression, Human Rights Defense, Media Freedom, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Experts

Susan Corke

Director for Eurasia Programs


Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Arch Puddington

Vice President for Research

Issues: 
Democratic Governance, Elections, Internet Freedom, Media Freedom, Religious Freedom, Rule of Law, U.S. Foreign Policy
Regions: 
Western Europe

David J. Kramer

President

Issues: 
Democratic Governance, Elections, Freedom of Expression, Media Freedom, Rule of Law, U.S. Foreign Policy
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Signature Reports

Freedom in the World

Freedom on the Net

Freedom of the Press

Nations in Transit

Countries at the Crossroads

Special Reports

Contending with Putin's Russia

As President Barack Obama enters his second term, relations with Russia present him with a set of thorny problems. This package of materials includes policy proposals, a summary of Russian legal restrictions on NGOs, a chronology of repressive actions under Vladimir Putin since 2000, and graphs illustrating Russia's score declines in Freedom House's annual reports.


 

Issues: 
Civil Society, Democratic Governance, U.S. Foreign Policy
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On

“Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On,” marks the 20th anniversary of the failed Soviet coup of August 19, 1991. The retrospective essay examines the changes in the political rights and civil liberties in the former Soviet Union over the last two decades, as well as includes graphs and rankings that illustrate the region's performance in the annual Freedom House publications Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press. The report  concludes that there is a serious and disturbing failure to embrace democratic institutions in most of the post-Soviet region.

Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Programs

Russia - North Caucus

Freedom House’s American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus coordinates with an international network of activists, journalists, scholars and nongovernmental organizations to advocate for and support human rights and rule of law, to monitor the upward trend of violence in the region, and to promote peace and stability in the North Caucasus.

Issues: 
Human Rights Defense
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Russia

We collaborate with Russia’s two most renowned human rights groups, Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group, to help end the increasingly common practice of government manipulation of the legal system.

Issues: 
Human Rights Defense
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia