Russian rights activist Sherbakova to open up archive of repression

Russia under Vladimir Putin is less stable than the Soviet Union, Irina Sherbakova, co-founder of the human rights organization Memorial has told dpa.

Sherbakova said that, while the Soviet system had been rotten and had lacked credibility, there had been clear rules for its leadership, for the Communist Party and for the administration. She contrasted this with what she described as Putin's system "organized on the mafia principle and based on personal trust."

Sherbakova said that everything depended on the 73-year-old president. "And that could lead to everything starting to collapse, if something were to happen to this person," she told dpa.

Putin's power still has capacity

The historian of modern Russia does not predict a rapid collapse even after almost four years of war in Ukraine. "The crisis is worsening; nevertheless the country still has capacity, and the power structure has capacity. The security apparatus is very strong, she said.

Putin's propaganda relied on rewriting Russian history and highlighting an allegedly heroic Russian past, she said.

In response, Memorial, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, was continuing "the processing of the history of political repression and resistance" despite a 2021 ban.

Memorial's work had changed in exile, said Sherbakova, who had to leave Moscow soon after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and now heads the Future Memorial Association in Germany.

She says the civil rights organization has the largest non-state archive detailing political repression in the Soviet Union, the gulag, criminals and the wars in Chechnya and Georgia.