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| 10-June=2025 |
The “terrorist act” charge arose from Rozhkov’s action against Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, when he painted a peace symbol on a fence and threw three Molotov cocktails at a military recruitment centre in Beryozovsky, near Sverdlovsk, causing negligible damage.
Rozhkov was arrested, initially charged with damage to property, and released under a travel ban. Fearing more serious charges, he fled to Kyrgyzstan. In May 2023 he was kidnapped, flown to Russia, handed over to the security forces and tortured. The further charges arose from interviews he gave while in Kyrgyzstan, denouncing Russia’s war.
This is Rozhkov’s final statement to the court, made on 20 May, before he was sentenced.
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| Alexei Rozhkov in court. Photo by Mediazona |
I’ll try to be methodical and tell things as they are. I am on trial for, among other things, having called the “special military operation” in Ukraine a war. I don’t think it’s a secret for anyone that, in our country, expressing your own opinion, if it differs from the position of the ruling authorities, remains dangerous, fraught with the risk of prison and worse. I truly love people and my country, but I don’t identify our country with the state and its all-powerful bureaucratic machine.
Without a doubt, the Russian state is powerful, perhaps, one of the most powerful in the world. There is no anti-war position within the government, which is dominated by the United Russia party. There is not any real opposition as such. There is, so to speak, a monopoly on power.
The question of engagement is important to me personally. Although I have never been a politician or a statesman, I could not remain indifferent when the war began. I have a conscience, and I preferred to hold on to it.
It’s entirely predictable that millions of people have come to identify the current government, and the president who leads it, with Russia itself. And so, any expression of opposition to the war, whether it be a public speech, an isolated picket, a demonstration, an act of hooliganism and so on, will be taken as an attack on Russia, even if very often it is nothing of the kind.
I have watched the authorities’ departure from the observation of democratic rights and constitutional freedoms, by introducing ever wider prohibitions; their total desire to control everything leads to authoritarianism and inevitably leads to political repression. The work of those who think differently is blocked, and they are “rewarded” with the status of foreign agents; the expression of a personal opinion, if it contradicts official political positions or propaganda, is treated as extremism and the justification of terrorism – and hooliganistic arson attacks are interpreted as acts of terrorism, as in my case.
I don’t deny that at the same time the most terrible events can happen, and have happened, such as the terror attack on the Crocus City Hall (in February 2024 at Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, which caused 145 deaths and 551 injuries), when people came to a concert by the rock group Picnic. The terrorists fired automatic weapons at a huge number of people and destroyed a building, across an area of more than 11 square kilometres, if I’m not mistaken. I have also heard about other scandalous cases of explosions in public places, where people have, or could have, suffered.
Unfortunately, we could give many examples of terrorist activity. And each such case involves both murder and the population being terrorised. My own desire to draw attention to the suffering of people, through an act of hooliganism, has nothing to do with terrorism. Even if it is an act of civil disobedience, as I have already acknowledged. Calling me a terrorist means blurring the distinction between me and the inhumane murderers responsible for the act of terrorism on Crocus City Hall, and others like them.
I never intended for anyone to suffer, I never sought any benefit, I was never contracted by anyone, but acted out of conscience, in accordance with universal human moral principles, and expressed my protest against the war through an act that was not supposed to, and did not, cause harm to anyone.
I also have no doubt that millions of my fellow Russians, women and men, young and old, are opposed to the war too, and, like me, are convinced that the war is not a solution, but a dead end. But they have no way – without risking ending up behind bars – to do anything to be heard, to ensure their opinion was listened to.
And many thousands of people are already in prisons and in penal colonies. How many really intended to kill, and did kill, out of those in the lists of extremists and terrorists? For as long as the list contains the names of those who acted against the war, without harm to other people, and faced fabricated criminal charges, it should really be called “the list of extremists, terrorists and political prisoners”.
I want to remind you that (Benito) Mussolini (the fascist dictator of Italy in 1922-43 and ally of Hitler) defined the essence of totalitarianism: “Nothing beyond the state, except the state, nothing against the state, all for the state, in the name of the state and through the state.” He was a fascist. Do we need to remember the Soviet dictatorship and its many millions of repressions? All the same, it is important to remember, and not to forget.
There is only one way to define the true difference between democracy and fascism. Democracy is a system that provides the economic, political and cultural conditions for the full development of the individual. Fascism, whatever it may call itself, is a system that forces the individual to submit to external aims, and that weakens the development of his or her true individuality. These are the words of Erich Fromm (the German Jewish democratic socialist and philosopher), and are very relevant to our own times. By the way, some of his books appear in the list of references used in the dossier compiled by the specialists for my criminal case. Erich Fromm hasn’t yet been banned here.
The military conflict and the invasion of Ukraine has inevitably led to the most dire of consequences. It has led to the death of a huge number of people, both military and civilian. The start of the war signalled the failure of common sense, the collapse of former international relations and the rise of Russophobia.
How much have violent crimes increased in this time? Where has the rise in mental health problems come from? Why is the birth rate at a record low? Because the military conflict directly or indirectly aeffects everyone, whether or not they have realised it or understood it yet.
It would be a victory for our country if there were no direct military conflict with Ukraine, but instead it continues now for a fourth year. And every day new graves appear in the cemeteries of those who have departed before their time, because of this war.
According to the uncompromising rules of life, those who have died have lost in this war. They can’t be brought back. Due to the inability of politicians to engage in constructive dialogue and diplomacy, the war has claimed lives on a daily basis across the past three years.
And from the point of view of universal human values, that is already a defeat. Victory, a universal human victory, can only be the fastest possible de-escalation, a ceasefire and an end to the conflict.
In my heart I hold the hope, and I believe that rapid changes for the better are possible. Life, freedom, culture, society – these aren’t simply a given, they are things that we need to struggle for, to create and construct. Truly, culture and freedom are what make us human. They are things that are so hard to obtain, and so easy to lose. It’s impossible to remain indifferent.
There are details of ways to support Alexei Rozhkov here. He is recognised as a political prisoner by the Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners project, and supported by Solidarity Zone.
Rozhkov has appealed against his sentence, and Solidarity Zone is raising funds to cover legal fees. After the trial, Solidarity Zone stated:
To continue defending Alexei, we still need to raise €600 to cover legal fees for the appeal and cassation stages. Don’t leave Alexei alone to face the repressive system.
Solidarity Zone reports that “before repression and persecution, Alexei Rozhkov led an ordinary life”. “He worked as a sales assistant at the electronics store, played in a rock band called Tell Me The Reason, was passionate about music, and enjoyed reading books on philosophy.
Politics also played an important role in his life. Alexei described himself as a left-wing anarchist and took part in street activism: painting graffiti and making protest leaflets. He expressed his views not only in words — the back of his hand is tattooed with the anarchist symbol.
Rozhkov made his view of Putin’s war on Ukraine very clear in the interviews that he gave to Russian opposition media, while he was in Kyrgyzstan. In an interview with Doxa in November 2022, he said:
It’s very difficult to admit to oneself that people are dying – peaceful people are dying; and those who did not want to make war, but were called up, are also dying. “I wanted to make some kind of call, so that people would start to fight against this war. I wanted to make a difference, to do something to stop all this or at least to weaken [the Russian military]. That’s the reason that I firebombed the military recruitment centre at Beryozovsky. I wasn’t trying to burn it to the ground.
Later, in an interview with the Khodorkovsky Live video channel (reported here), Rozhkov stated:
Putin started this “special military operation” – essentially, a war. This is fascism plain and simple, the extermination of Ukrainian citizens. The fact that the invasion has been confounded, that it has been turned back, doesn’t give me any comfort. And it wasn’t giving me any comfort when I committed this crime. I could not remain indifferent or stay on the sidelines. I felt I had to do something.
Years were added on to Rozhkov’s sentences for these and similar statements. 10 June 2025.
🔴Thanks to Nick Evans for translating the speech. The original is here.
🔴 More on anti-war prisoners in Russian courts here, here and here.
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