Evgenia Chirikova: “Recognize the FSB as a terrorist organization”

Interview conducted by Galia Ackerman

Russian human rights defender Evgenia Chirikova recounts her struggle to inform the world about the fate of Ukrainian patriots, as well as random civilian victims, in the occupied territories of Ukraine. She will be our guest on January 15, 2026, and her film, The Prisoners: The System of Terror, will be screened in the auditorium of City Hall, Paris.

Tell us how you started.

It was related to Khimki Forest, almost 20 years ago. 

I was living in Khimki, a small town near Moscow. We were looking for a quiet place to live with our children. And we chose Khimki precisely because of its forest.

My husband and I had our own business, an engineering consulting firm. We paid our taxes and I understood how the public system worked. My husband and I often went for walks in the forest. I was pregnant with my second child at the time.

We soon discovered strange signs of deforestation. We soon learned that there was a plan to build a new toll highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was to run right through the middle of the forest, and on either side of the road, three kilometers were reserved for transportation and commercial infrastructure. Two thousand hectares of this forest, which was communal property, were to be given over to what is called infrastructure and development.

We were deeply outraged, because we knew at the time that this was the last forest of this size north of Moscow, the city’s last lung. It was a completely criminal decision. At first, we thought that the Russian authorities simply didn’t understand. We were naive 20 years ago. So we decided to bring this information to the attention of the public.

We printed flyers at my house, on my personal printer. Then my baby was born, which was very convenient. I would take the stroller, walk around town and hand out these flyers, leaving my phone number and explaining that our forest was in danger. People could contact me by phone. That’s how our group of activists was formed, which took care of protecting Khimki Forest. It was my first experience as an activist.

We started by studying what Western activists were doing. In short, we tried all the methods of civic activism in our fight, i.e., petitions, rallies, and picket lines. And we ended up organizing a camp in Khimki Forest. And because we were fighting in a very systematic way and had studied in detail how to do it, we managed to attract the attention of the press.

We managed to launch a fairly large popular movement in defense of Khimki Forest, the first of its kind in Russia. I should point out that we also uncovered a system of corruption in which the French company Vinci, which participated in the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway project, was involved.

We discovered that the Russian authorities were laundering money through Vinci, via Arkady Rotenberg¹. We were able to pass this information on to the French public prosecutor’s office, which even opened an investigation. However, the investigation was unsuccessful because, after questioning me and other witnesses, the investigators were forced to contact the Russian authorities. And when you contact criminals, you can’t expect them to help you investigate them.

You ultimately lost the five-year battle for Khimki Forest. The forces involved were too unequal. But you gained valuable experience.

We created a special media platform for activists called Activatica, which gave a voice to activists who had no experience in journalism. We helped organize campaigns and, over time, began to provide legal assistance.

So we gave comprehensive support to the civic movement in Russia. We supported those who were fighting for their environmental rights, for their private property, for human rights. We were interested in all civic activities, including, for example, when people ran for office as independent candidates. We gradually realized that the main problem came from our Russian government, because it is absolutely immovable. We realized that we were not masters in our own country, which is why we joined the protests for fair elections.

You took an active stance in 2011-2012..

I personally observed the 2012 elections, in which Putin declared victory, and I saw with my own eyes that the vote had been rigged with help from the security forces. I was elected to the Coordination Council of the Russian Opposition alongside Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny, and we demanded fair elections and Putin’s resignation. To no avail.

What motivated you to leave Russia?

The annexation of Crimea was a real personal tragedy for me. Honestly, I expected Russians not to accept it, to have the same reaction, which was one of total shock: how can you take something that isn’t yours? It goes against all moral principles.

Imagine my astonishment when I realized that our protests against the annexation and the war were just a drop in the ocean, and that most people were wildly celebrating! In the streets of Moscow, people were holding up signs saying, “Do you want Russia to expand further? You decide how far.” They were collecting money to help the bandits in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics who had stirred up the war.

Activatica was then labeled a “foreign agent” because we were among the first to say that the annexation of Crimea was a crime. At the same time, my comrades on the Coordination Council began to be either expelled from the country, imprisoned, or, like Boris Nemtsov, simply murdered. Before that, I had already had problems with the FSB. They tried to take my children away from me. Agents from the FSB, the Center for Combating Extremism, and social services came to see me. Fortunately, I did not open my door to them. They then went to see my neighbors and tried to get them to sign documents stating that I was a bad mother, that I mistreated my children, etc. My neighbors warned me; they are wonderful people.

Public mobilization saved my children, because it caused a huge scandal, and the children’s rights ombudsman himself later apologized. We realized that the media was a powerful tool for activists. In a totalitarian and authoritarian regime, it may be the only way to defend yourself: publicity.

Aware of the problems we had encountered, my weaknesses—my children—and the fact that I would simply not be allowed to work in Russia, we decided to change the way we operated, and I moved to Estonia with my family. We set up our organization’s headquarters there, which retained a large number of activists in 19 Russian regions. Throughout the military invasion, we continued to support very different and successful grassroots movements.

The number of these activist groups grew exponentially before 2022. There were hundreds and hundreds of them throughout Russia. The fight for Khimki Forest was an example of appropriate action for us. We adopted the strategy that people fighting for their rights must unite, use their solidarity to achieve their civic goals, not allow themselves to be trampled on by the authorities, and demand respect, because they have dignity and are citizens. That is the message we convey.

How did the start of the large-scale war affect your work?

The year 2022 was a turning point in my life, because I did not expect such a fascist attack. They bombed and are still bombing civilians, who are panicked and terrified.

Almost immediately after that, we realized that we were in a unique position. Why? We had already been in Estonia for ten years. We had connections in Russia as well as in Estonia and other Western countries.

We were the first to evacuate Ukrainians from occupied territories. Because when the Russian occupiers entered Ukrainian territory, they already had lists, they had already set up filtration camps, they had prepared for occupation, unlike the population. And what happened next? The occupiers organized filtration camps and sent thousands of people from the occupied territories to these camps.

After filtration, some were sent to prisons in the occupied territories, others were sent to Russian territory after being screened. And the people who ended up on Russian territory were completely destitute.

These were people who had been bombed, who had suffered bombings, whose papers had often been burned, who had nothing left, no money, and were in a state of terrible panic, finding themselves in the territory of the aggressor country, without any rights. We understood that our mission was to save and evacuate these people. That’s when a tremendous networking effort began to set up a network of Russian and Western activists and volunteers.

We began evacuating people from the occupied territories and Russian territory to take them to safe countries. We welcomed Ukrainian refugees here in Estonia. Naturally, as we had a journalistic project, we interviewed them and asked them questions about the filtration camps.

What they told us not only worried us, it outraged us. We immediately sent information about the filtration camps to all the embassies and the U.N.. We tried to spread this terrible information everywhere. And we continued to work with Ukrainian refugees. At that point, we had set up a whole program. It was logistical assistance, meaning that if someone wanted to travel from Estonia to Poland, Germany, or even Ireland or Canada, we took care of organizing everything, because these people had no money left. We arranged medical care and temporary accommodation. We had several such places to accommodate them around the world. In Estonia, Germany, Poland, and even Armenia and Georgia. We helped them with food, clothing, and household goods. So we had a very extensive and comprehensive program to help Ukrainian refugees.

But you also took a clear political stance.

Since I am very actively involved in the Free Russia Forum with Garry Kasparov, we regularly discuss with our colleagues how we, as Russians, can influence this situation. First of all, we understood one important thing: Ukraine is our main ally. It is the Ukrainians who are fighting with weapons in their hands against Putin’s regime. Our most important mission today is to help Ukraine as much as we can. About two years ago, we held an important Forum conference in Tallinn. I stated there that our task was to help the Ukrainian army, because it is the Ukrainian army that is fighting against Putin’s regime. The Forum then took the crucial decision to help the Ukrainian army. We agreed to hold an auction to support Russians who have gone to fight for Ukraine.

These are volunteers who decided, with their Russian passports and toxic citizenship, to fight alongside Ukraine. I agreed to host this auction. We raised €50,000, which we sent to the volunteers in the regiment.

As volunteers, they are part of the Ukrainian armed forces. Criminal proceedings for terrorism were immediately initiated. Garry Kasparov, Ivan Tyutrin, and I found ourselves involved in the same criminal case. We were arrested in absentia. For an ordinary person, suddenly becoming a terrorist is, of course, unpleasant, to say the least. It was a shock. Many people began to be afraid to even communicate with me. But on the other hand, I immediately received the green light from the Ukrainians. I received an invitation to come to Ukraine. I managed to get there and report on the crimes committed by the Russian army in small border towns. In Chuhuiv, in Kupiansk. I showed how the Russians bomb an ordinary town day and night, where people live, feeding their cats and clearing the rubble under these bombs.

I published this report. And I was immediately accused of a new crime: spreading false information about the Russian army.

I traveled through almost the whole of Ukraine. My God… I saw an incredible number of cemeteries with flags flying, because every grave of a soldier who died in the war was topped with a flag. Miles and miles of flags. I walked through a cemetery in Kharkiv. I was completely overwhelmed by what I saw: children’s toys on the graves of young soldiers in their twenties. These young people went to die for their country, and their parents placed their childhood toys on their graves. I showed that Ukraine was really fighting, that people were fighting for their country. That’s why, I think, it hurt Putin’s supporters so much, and they decided to open a new criminal case against me.

And how did you become interested in the abducted people?

Our lawyer informed me that several Ukrainian volunteers in the occupied territories had been imprisoned. I was struck by the cruelty of the conditions in which they found themselves. I followed the fate of a man who lost 50 kilos. He was just a volunteer, distributing water. He was an elderly man who was arrested in an occupied territory and sent to prison by the Russian security forces, where he received no medical assistance. Thank God our lawyer noticed this and began to actively help him. We even managed to exchange him later, but it was a complicated, incredibly difficult process. Over two and a half years, we only managed to exchange three people. I didn’t know how many people were in this situation; I thought there were a few dozen, maybe a few hundred.

Tania Platchkova’s death strongly motivated me to conduct a serious investigation. She was a completely ordinary woman, she ran a small restaurant with her husband in Melitopol, she organized parties and banquets, she was simply the soul of the city, and of course, during the occupation, she was a volunteer, she helped others to survive, she was an open, bright person. Then one day, she and her husband were taken from their home by the security forces and ended up in a concentration camp. We are trying to exchange Tania, and I am convinced that we will succeed, because Tania is my age—she is about 50—she is not in the military, she knows no military secrets, so why would they need her, I thought to myself. Then I received information from my lawyer: Tania, completely naked and covered in bruises, had been transported in a coma from the prison to the hospital in Melitopol. She was immediately taken into care, but did not regain consciousness. Our lawyer took action, he tried to get her released, and we even obtained the agreement of the Investigative Committee, but this repugnant investigator, a fascist quite simply, an FSB agent who was handling Tania’s case, put up all kinds of obstacles and ultimately succeeded in preventing Tania’s release. She died in the hospital without regaining consciousness. As for Oleg Platchkov, her husband, we have been searching for him for two years now. His daughter is looking for him, all the human rights defenders are looking for him, but we can’t find him anywhere.

Tania’s death had a huge impact on our team. We got together and decided to make films, to draw attention and to understand what is happening in the occupied territories.

So it was Tania Platchkova’s fate that prompted you to create a series of films about kidnapped people?

Tania Platchkova’s death was, so to speak, the straw that broke the camel’s back. We had never done investigative journalism before, so we had to think about this decision, acquire new knowledge, and embark on a new profession. We immediately contacted the Center for Civil Liberties, Ukraine’s largest human rights organization, which provided us with the contact details of the relatives of several Ukrainian prisoners. We then began conducting lengthy interviews with them, and that’s how our first film, Prisoners, came about. That was in November 2024, and at that time, according to data from the Center for Civil Liberties, there were 7,000 civilian prisoners who had been abducted by Russian security forces and detained in Russian prisons, both in the occupied territories and on Russian territory. The film shows the fate of three families. In addition to the Platchkovs’ story, there is the Kozlov family. The father, Ivan Kozlov, was taken away in front of his wife and two young children during a screening, and they never saw him again. He was tortured so badly that he made several suicide attempts in prison. It is a real tragedy, because when Ivan’s father learned that his son had fallen into the hands of this system, he had a heart attack and died, while his other son, who was fighting on the front lines, also lost his life. The third story we showed is that of Damian Omelianenko. I am currently working closely with his mother, Tania, who is fighting for her son. He is a young man, a student, a graduate of a military school. He did not fight; he was kidnapped by the security forces. He identifies himself as Ukrainian and a Ukrainian patriot, and that is why, because he does not give in, because he does not want to bow down to his tormentors, because he does not want to sing the Russian anthem and glorify Putin, he was beaten so badly that he has become disabled: he has been tortured with electricity, all his teeth have been broken, he has an ulcer at the age of 24, and he has lost 30 kilos. Tania doesn’t even know what he looks like now. He is currently in the terrifying Taganrog detention center, SIZO-2, which we mention in our films.

This film was the beginning of a series.

We quickly realized that we had to continue our work, because as we gathered this information, we realized that this was not about three families, or even dozens, but thousands of cases. We began to understand how this system of terror worked, because these were not excesses committed by individuals, nor were they isolated cases. We then began our second film, which we called Prisoners. The System of Terror.

We began searching for civilians who had been in concentration camps, such as Oleksandr Tarassov, who had organized protests in Kherson against the occupiers and had been kidnapped and horribly tortured. He managed to be released by some miracle, thanks to the fact that he was a well-known journalist and that people had come to his defense. At the beginning of the occupation, the system was not as powerful. Today, we work a lot with Tarassov. Our second film was presented to the European Parliament on July 1, 2025, and it made such an impression that on July 9, MEPs adopted a resolution condemning the terror and demanding the release of Ukrainian civilian prisoners from Russian concentration camps. In this film, we include a long commentary by one of the leader of the Memorial NGO, Oleg Orlov, who explains that this practice is not new, that the system of terror was put in place during the Chechen wars, where civilians were kidnapped, tortured in monstrous ways, and then all murdered. Because not enough attention was paid to the terror that was raging in Chechnya, these people all perished without anyone being held accountable.

And the most serious, the most frightening thing is that the Russian army is training executioners from these now subjugated Chechens. In other words, they are participating in torture, they are participating in this repugnant and aggressive war. And what are the Russians doing today when they arrive in the occupied territories? They immediately start recruiting Ukrainians for the same dirty work!

That is their method. They organize terror, they set up a system of concentration camps, a system of filtration camps, they kidnap people, torture the most active ones, thus intimidating the local population and paralyzing all activity. And at the same time, they are training an army from these people who are already subjugated and broken.

That is what is frightening. If we do not help Ukraine to resist, if we do not help it to liberate its territories from the occupiers, tomorrow the Russians will come to us, to the Baltic countries, to Europe. And these Chechens and Ukrainians will participate.

In other words, Russia is incorporating into its ranks people from nations with which it was still at war not long ago. That is the method of the Russian Federation.

It has been that way for a long time. Under tsarism as under the Soviet regime.

Absolutely. But it will have to end one day. And today, when these so-called peace negotiations are underway and people are saying that we must give these occupied territories to Russia, and even other territories, to end this war, I protest.

No, my friends, that is tantamount to supporting the terror that is currently raging in these occupied territories. It means that you are turning a blind eye to this terror. The Russian occupiers must be driven out of Ukrainian lands. That is the only way to stop the war. There is no other solution. That is why we are currently launching a campaign to draw attention to terrorism in the occupied territories. So that it is impossible to conclude agreements and cede the occupied Ukrainian territories to the aggressor. This is very dangerous for the rest of the world.

On December 18, the Italian Senate will hold a public hearing on the topic of terrorism in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Our film Prisoners. The System of Terror will be screened. Many relatives of Ukrainian civilians currently imprisoned in concentration camps will attend. They will all speak. I will introduce a special report and ask that structures such as the Rosgvardia, the FSIN [Editor’’s note: penitentiary service] and the FSB, which were directly involved in creating the system of terror, kidnapping and torturing Ukrainian civilians, be recognized as terrorist organizations. I think that’s what we need to achieve now.

What will this change for these organizations?

If we manage to really draw attention to the issue of terrorism and show that Russia is behaving like Hitler’s Germany, it will change a lot for Western politicians. We need to show them that we are facing a new Holocaust. In that case, neither Jared Kushner nor anyone else close to Trump will be able to bring themselves to cede territory to Russia. I am trying to ensure that any possibility of continuing terrorism at the expense of Ukrainian lives and any cession of Ukrainian territory to the aggressor is considered indecent.

I am currently trying to convince public opinion. In this regard, the meeting that Desk Russie is organizing at Paris City Hall on January 15, 2026, is extremely important. France is a key country in the European Union. France has remarkable institutions that can deal with this terror. Our task is to bring information about Russian state terror to the attention of leaders so that they talk about it because no one is talking about it anywhere.

In Anchorage, red carpets were rolled out for Putin, and not a word was said about terrorism. Among all these discussions about “peace,” not a word about terrorism. My task is to make sure that people talk about it, that they shout about it.

And it is essential to demand that these organizations be recognized as terrorist organizations because recognizing a phenomenon is the first step in fighting it.

How many Ukrainian civilians are being held illegally in Russian prisons?

In our film, the figure of 15,000 civilian prisoners held in prisons in the occupied territories and on Russian territory is put forward. But Ukrainian human rights defenders say this figure is underestimated. On Russian territory, Ukrainians are being held in 180 prisons. That’s a huge number. As for the number of prisons in the occupied territories, we simply do not have the means to know at this time. Incidentally, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) has requested the equivalent of $1 billion in 2022 to expand the prison system in the occupied territories, just for the buildings.

Human rights defenders are currently talking about 30,000 to 40,000 Ukrainian civilian prisoners. No one knows the exact number. We are continuing our investigation and gathering information about the torturers. We are going to release a film called The Executioners, about those who directly commit these crimes. Evil has a name, a first name, a surname, and the whole world needs to know about it.

As part of this investigation, we are of course interviewing the victims. We continue to interview the relatives of Ukrainian civilians and those who were themselves detained in these concentration camps. In addition, we are currently receiving information that some Ukrainian civilians are being enslaved. They are forced to dig trenches for the Russians, entire underground cities, fortifications. And almost all of these Ukrainians are then shot. No one knows how many there are.

That is where the tragedy lies. There is no count of the number of people who have been kidnapped, shot, tortured to death, raped, turned into slaves, or who have committed suicide. No one knows. This is what we call terrorism. I’m going to make a film about this. So we have several films in the works, and at the same time, the Activatica project continues its work.

We also publish information about citizen activism, about how people are resisting, including in the occupied territories. We talk about partisan movements both on Russian territory and in the occupied territories. We talk about what is currently happening in Russia.

Yes, there, the protests were suppressed and the people who resisted ended up in prison. We also need to talk about these people. We have a project on TikTok called Voices Behind Bars, where we give a voice to Russians and Ukrainians who have gone through the horror of Russian prisons.

Will recognizing the FSB as a terrorist organization, along with the FSIN, etc., put an end to the kidnappings? What needs to be done to free the large number of people who are in prison, often in special prisons? And how can this terror be stopped?

We asked Oleg Orlov how to put an end to this practice. I completely agree with his answer. There is only one way to end the terror. It is to liberate the occupied territories from the occupiers. This is called de-occupation. And for this, a Ukrainian military victory is necessary. That is why I so often call for support for the Ukrainian army.

Recognizing organizations such as the FSIN, the FSB, and the Rosgvardia as terrorist organizations, as well as recognizing the very fact of terrorism, will allow Western politicians to understand why it is necessary to de-occupy these territories.

How can we help civilians who have ended up in concentration camps?

There is currently no exchange procedure. Their release therefore requires very special efforts: diplomatic efforts, efforts on the part of human rights organizations, including large organizations such as the U.N., the Red Cross, etc. Any discussion with Russia must begin with the fate of civilian hostages, neither with a peace agreement, nor with rare metals or infrastructure projects. Everything must begin with people. An excellent campaign, launched by the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, is currently underway, called People First. And this campaign must be supported in every way possible.

What fate for civilians in the occupied Ukrainian territories? Evening event at the Paris City Hall auditorium on January 15, 2026