Russian Antiwar Committee declared ‘terrorist organisation’ by Supreme Court

Russia’s Supreme Court has ruled the Russian Antiwar Committee to be a “terrorist organisation” and outlawed the group’s activities in Russia, independent Telegram news channel SOTAvision reported on Monday.

Founded in 2022 by a group of prominent Russian anti-war figures in exile, including businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, political scientist Yekaterina Schulmann, and Novaya Gazeta Europe editor-in-chief Kirill Martynov, The Russian Antiwar Committee is an umbrella opposition group set up to oppose Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine. 

The Russian authorities labeled the committee an “undesirable” organisation in January 2024, criminalising any engagement with the group in Russia, including sharing its content online. 

In October, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced it was opening criminal cases against 23 members of the Antiwar Committee for “involvement in a terrorist community”. The charges reportedly related to committee members’ participation in a “platform for dialogue” with the Council of Europe, which the FSB claimed was an attempt to position themselves as an “alternative to the Russian authorities”.

Prosecutors in Moscow requested that the organisation receive the more serious designation of “terrorist organisation” in February.

The ruling was made by Judge Oleg Nefedov in a closed-door session of the court in Moscow. Prosecutors argued that the Antiwar Committee had been founded with the goal of “violently seizing power and changing the constitutional order in the Russian Federation”.

Nefedev previously presided over hearings that designated both the “international LGBT movement” and the “international satanist movement” as extremist organisations, and he was also the judge who threw out lawsuits filed by Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny against his penal colony and the Justice Ministry.