(14 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PLEASE NOTE: AP IS OPERATING IN RUSSIA ACCORDING TO RUSSIAN RESTRICTIONS ON ALL REPORTING RELATED TO THE ONGOING MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Moscow – 14 May 2025
1. Wide of Grigory Melkonyants, the co-chair of Russia’s leading election watchdog Golos, in glass cage
2. Close of handcuffs
3. Melkonyants waving in cage
4. Melkonyants’ lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov
5. Melkonyants listening to verdict UPSOUND (Russian): "(The court has found) Grigory Arkadyevich Melkonyants guilty of committing a crime under Part 3 of Article 284 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as amended by Federal Law No. 260-FZ dated July 14, 2022, and has sentenced him to five years of imprisonment to be served in a general regime correctional colony."
6. Melkonyants listening to the verdict
7. Melkonyants talking to journalists UPSOUND (Russian): "Thank you, journalists, for covering the process."
8. Biryukov outside the cage
9. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Mikhail Biryukov, Melkonyants’ lawyer:
"It is not the sentence we heard that is terrible, it is the very fact of a guilty verdict in this case that is terrible. We, the defense, believe that there is no evidence in this case that would justify a guilty verdict. We consider this case to be politically motivated and biased, and we will, of course, file an appeal. We will fight for Grigory’s freedom, because an unlawful and unjust verdict shouldn’t stand."
10. Biryukov talking to journalists outside
STORYLINE:
A court in Moscow on Wednesday convicted one of the leaders of a prominent independent election monitoring group on charges of organizing the work of an “undesirable” organization and sentenced him to five years in prison.
Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of Russia’s leading election watchdog Golos, has rejected the charges as politically motivated.
The case against him is part of the monthslong crackdown on Kremlin critics and rights activists that the government ratcheted up after invading Ukraine in 2022.
After a judge of the Basmanny District Court delivered the verdict, Melkonyants, 44, told several dozen supporters and journalists from the glass defendant’s cage: "Thank you, journalists, for covering the process."
Outside the court, Melkonyants’ lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov, said "the very fact of a guilty verdict in this case" was unlawful, and that the defense believed the court’s decision "to be politically motivated and biased."
An appeal, he said, will be filed.
Golos has monitored for and exposed violations in every major election in Russia since it was founded in 2000. Over the years, it has faced mounting pressure from the authorities.
In 2013, the group was designated as a “foreign agent” — a label that implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations. Three years later, it was liquidated as a non-governmental organization by Russia’s Justice Ministry.
Golos has continued to operate without registering as an NGO, exposing violations in various elections, and in 2021 it was added to a new registry of “foreign agents,” created by the Justice Ministry for groups that are not registered as a legal entity in Russia.
It has not been designated as “undesirable” — a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense. But when it was an NGO, it was a member of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, a group that was declared “undesirable” in Russia in 2021, and the charges against Melkonyants stemmed from that.
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