Don’t Give Up!

Looking back on 2025, we see not only difficulties, but victories. We see dozens of people released from detention centers. We see 54 political prisoners who received help and hope. We see Ukrainian defenders who received drones and equipment, and Ukrainian civilians who received humanitarian aid funded by donations from anti-war Russians. We see new participants joining our communities and finding a home within them.

The main thing we have recorded this year: together, we are a force. Alone, one can do little. But when we unite - when thousands of people donate $20, when volunteers spend evenings writing letters to political prisoners, when activists go out into the streets despite exhaustion - what seemed impossible yesterday becomes possible.

Resistance to dictatorship is not only loud words. It is everyday, small actions: a postcard to a political prisoner, $20 for a drone for a Ukrainian defender, an hour devoted to helping a refugee, showing up at a rally when you want to stay home. It is the willingness to extend a hand to those in trouble.

It is from these steps that real resistance is built.

Dictatorship seeks to deprive us of a sense of strength, to make us lonely and afraid. We refuse to submit. We choose hope. We choose action. We choose each other.

2026 will not be easy. But we will face it together. Because we are not just an organization. We are a community.

And as long as we are united, we cannot be broken.

Happy New Year 2026, friends!
Don’t give up!

RUSSIAN AMERICA

FOR DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA

2025 RESULTS

Dear friends!

When we look back on the past year, we see not just a list of projects and numbers - we see people’s faces, we hear voices that have not been silenced. 2025 became a year that tested our resilience. But it is precisely in moments of trial that we recognize the most important thing: we are not scattered individuals in exile.

We are a community. And our strength lies in being together.

This report is about how we lived, struggled, helped, and did not give up in 2025 - from Boston to San Diego, from Seattle to Miami. About how thousands of small actions give rise to something great. About how the impossible becomes possible when we act together. About how our communities grow and develop, and how new participants join them.

Protest Activities

For our communities, protest is one of the tools for expressing our identity. It is a way to say: “We are here. We are not silent.” In 2025, our communities took to the streets again and again.

February 16 became a day of remembrance and determination. In 2024, Putin’s dictatorship murdered Alexei Navalny, attempting to kill hope for change itself. But on that day, people gathered in dozens of U.S. cities for whom Navalny is not just a name, but a symbol of another Russia - the Beautiful Russia of the Future. We stood by the White House in Washington, on the steps of the State Capitols in Boston and Sacramento, on the streets of Chicago and New York. We lit candles, held portraits of Alexei, and spoke his words: “Don’t give up.” That day, we felt that we were not alone in our grief or in our struggle.

On February 23-24, we stood shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians. Three years of full-scale war - three years of pain, courage, and the unbroken spirit of the Ukrainian people. On those days, the Russian-speaking anti-war diaspora took to the streets of Washington, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Tampa, Miami, and Denver with one message: Ukraine must win. A just peace is impossible without the full liberation of Ukrainian land, without the return of all prisoners and abducted children. For us, this is not just solidarity - it is a question of our own humanity.

On June 4, we gathered to mark a day that was taken from us - Alexei Navalny’s 49th birthday. In Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Sacramento, Tampa, and Washington, we brought flowers, remembered his laughter, his courage, his faith in us. We declared: as long as we remember, as long as we act - he is with us.

At the end of October, RADR communities organized memorial actions as part of the international campaign “Returning the Names.”

In Sacramento, activists continued a tradition that has become the heartbeat of the local community: on the 6th of every month - an action in support of political prisoners in Russia; on the 24th of every month - in support of Ukraine. These are regular reminders: we are here, we have not forgotten, we continue.

These actions are more than protests; they are spaces where we find one another, where new people meet like-minded individuals for the first time, where our collective identity takes shape: we are those who do not remain passive.

Freedom Birds for Ukraine

Freedom Birds for Ukraine is a collective effort by anti-war Russians to help those who defend freedom on the front lines and in the rear.

Reconnaissance drones, thermal imagers, vehicles for evacuating the wounded, satellite communications, tactical medicine — all of this goes into the hands of those who are resisting a brutal dictatorship that threatens, among others, the countries in which we now live.

Over the year, together with you, we raised $121,400 for drones and equipment and $6,400 for humanitarian aid to civilians — a total of $127,800.

In 2025, we purchased:

26 drones, including 6 Mavic 3T drones with thermal imaging - $60,756
anti-drone equipment - $19,730
radio, optical, and satellite equipment - $18,553
3 vehicles - $15,000
tactical medicine - $12,850
chargers, tools, repairs, and more - $4,167
generators and charging stations - $2,838
thermal imagers - $1,567

Humanitarian expenses totaled $8,000.

In October 2025, the FBU project became a separate nonprofit organization, while remaining closely connected with RADR.

RADR communities come up with their own ways to help. At the beginning of the year, RADR Sacramento activists launched the Mugs for Lives campaign - hand-painted mugs, with proceeds going toward tourniquets for Ukrainian fighters. The RADR Miami community organized a lottery, with funds raised directed to FBU.

Since FBU was launched in 2022, total fundraising has nearly reached $500,000. This is one of the largest grassroots Russian aid projects supporting Ukraine. But behind this number are thousands of people who contributed $5, $20, $100. It contains the confidence that we can save lives in a war, even while being across the ocean. Helping Ukraine is not just charity - it is our answer to the question: “Who are we?”

We are those who refuse to be part of an empire of evil. We are those who chose freedom.

Detentions Projects

In the meantime, we spoke about the situation in the media, met with members of Congress and executive branch officials, documented and systematized violations of refugees’ rights in various detention centers. We conducted a series of webinars with immigration lawyers, where we explained in detail how to prepare for court, what documents to collect, how to build a defense, and answered viewers’ questions.

We are very happy to report success stories, our victories - many of those we helped received asylum and were released. Daniil from Samara received asylum in March after almost a year in detention. Matvey - asylum and release. Sergey and Natalia, whose cases were heard by different judges and handled by attorney Alina Kats, received asylum and release. The cases of Viktoria, Veronika, and Mila - asylum and release after many months in detention. Polina Guseva, who spent 445 days in detention, received asylum and was released as well, thanks to the work of Alina Kats. Artem and Tonya - asylum and release in November after a year-long struggle, also with the participation of Alina Kats’ outstanding team. Dozens of people received legal consultations, volunteers translated hundreds of pages of documents, and dozens of law firms were contacted.

We would like to express our deep gratitude to:

the volunteers of the Detentions project - you are wonderful, caring people; without you, none of these success stories would have been possible;
the attorneys who work with us pro bono - Alina Kats and her team, Liya Djamilova, Julia Nikolaev, Maria Safronova, Anton Vsevolodov, and Bogdan Povetiev. You are lifesavers in critical situations, people with big hearts, and we are grateful for your help and professionalism;
the journalists covering this difficult topic and RADR’s work - this is extremely important, thank you for your work.

We will continue our work in 2026. Now it is important for us to do everything possible to ensure that the response of democratic countries to the threat posed by the Russian dictatorship does not turn against those who are fleeing that dictatorship themselves. We must demonstrate to the United States and the free world: pro-democracy Russians are allies of the free world, not enemies, and some of them now need protection.

The second half of 2024 and all of 2025 became the most difficult period for Russian refugees in the United States since the start of the full-scale war. The path to asylum turned into an ordeal that tragically affected many lives. Since mid-2024, Russians crossing the border and seeking asylum began to be массово placed in detention centers - immigration prisons where waiting for court stretches for an indefinite period: many months, and sometimes more than two years. Families were separated: children were sent to shelters, parents to different detention centers. People were denied access to evidence of persecution and threats to their safety stored on their phones and computers, and isolation made it difficult to find lawyers.

The year 2025 began with hope: on December 31, 2024, our beneficiaries Liza were released from detention, and on January 1, Maxim - a young family of Yakut anti-war activists. Five months in detention, while RADR volunteers searched for a lawyer, raised funds, ensured communication between them, and supported them in isolation. And then they were free. It was a victory - small, but real.

With the arrival of a new administration, ICE raids began, leading to the detention of refugees and mass deportations of Russians on charter flights. Four special flights carrying 50–60 people each were sent to Moscow via Egypt - in handcuffs and shackles, under heavy escort. Upon arrival, deportees were interrogated at the airport by FSB officers; men received draft notices. Among the deported were those who opposed the war, participated in protests, or simply did not want to be complicit in the regime’s crimes. Volunteers from the Detentions project promptly tracked flight logistics and maintained contact with deportees.

In mid-year, what we feared happened. In July, Leonid Melekhin, an activist from Perm who was denied asylum and deported to Russia, was detained and placed in pretrial detention. In August, deserter Artem Vovchenko was deported after being denied asylum and was also arrested immediately upon arrival at the airport. People found themselves in the hands of the very system they had fled.

Throughout the year, the Detentions project did everything within our power:

We contacted those who ended up in detention centers, explained basic rules, helped find lawyers, topped up phone accounts so people could call their loved ones.
We raised money for lawyers - pro bono defense is very rare, and without legal representation, chances of asylum are extremely low.
We forwarded documents, prepared translations and reports on the situation in Russia, searched for separated families and helped restore contact between them.

Support for Political Prisoners

Every month, we receive short letters of thanks from prisoners. “Thank you for your help. It means so much.” Behind these dry lines is enormous relief - a person who received a package, who realized that somewhere out there, beyond the walls, there are people who remember them.

An independent audit of all expenses is conducted by the human rights project “Political Prisoners Support. Memorial” - we report on every ruble.

In Atlanta, Washington, Virginia Beach, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Sacramento, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Tampa, Charleston, and Chicago, people gather to write warm words to those behind bars. Over five months, we wrote 2,058 birthday cards and 381 letters to political prisoners and Ukrainians illegally held in Russian prisons. We wrote to people we do not know personally, but whose courage, resilience, and commitment to their beliefs command deep respect. These people vary greatly in age, profession, and life experience. Among them are activists, scholars, volunteers, participants in civic initiatives, NGO representatives, as well as those who lived ordinary lives but chose to speak the truth despite the threat of imprisonment. And also Ukrainians abducted or convicted by Russia for resisting aggression or simply for their citizenship. Their stories differ, but each is about a human being confronting a cruel and unjust Putin's system.

The campaign “Buy a Book - Help a Political Prisoner,” launched at the end of 2024, continued in 2025. In New York, at rallies and concerts, we sold 32 books, raising $1,600. Half of this amount was directed to support political prisoners.

This is a project sustained by your - our - collective generosity. By those $10, $20, $50 that anyone can donate. It is proof that small actions, combined, create miracles.

There are political prisoners in Russia about whom almost no one knows. There are no media articles, no loud campaigns, no support groups for them. They are imprisoned in Russian jails for social media posts, anti-war statements, participation in protests. Among them are Ukrainians abducted from occupied territories, thrown into Russian colonies without trial or investigation.

For such people, in 2025 RADR launched a targeted assistance project. This is focused, personal support for those left face to face with a brutal system of torture.

In 2025:

2,430,000 rubles ($30,750) were raised
2,350,000 rubles were transferred to political prisoners
57 people received assistance (46 men, 8 women)

Among them, 20 abducted or captured Ukrainian citizens.

Each month, the list grew. In January, we helped 24 people; in February - 25; in March - 29. By June, the number reached 44 people. Repression is intensifying, more and more people are being imprisoned, while relatives in Russia either need help themselves or have no contact with prisoners.

What do these transfers of 5,000-6,000 rubles mean? In a Russian penal colony, this is the minimum that can help someone survive. It is food, when the prison ration is unfit for human consumption. It is medicine, when healthcare in the colony is a mockery. It is warm socks, when the barracks are below freezing.

Adaptation Project

Imagine: you have just arrived in America. A new country, new rules, a new language. You do not know how to open a bank account, get a driver’s license, rent an apartment, obtain medical care, or enroll your children in school. You are lonely and confused. And suddenly, you find a chat where hundreds of people who have gone through this path are ready to answer your questions, support you, and explain.

In 2025, our adaptation chats in nine cities - Miami, Sacramento, New York, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Washington - became real mutual aid networks. These are not just information resources. They are places where a sense of belonging is formed, where newcomers become part of a community.

On January 20, 2025, a new era for immigrants in the U.S. began: the shutdown of the CBP One app, the declaration of a state of emergency at the border, mass ICE raids.

On the RADR YouTube channel, we launched a series of regular livestreams with experienced immigration attorneys - Liya Djamilova and Alina Kats. They became voices of reason amid the chaos of the immigration system.

In these periods of uncertainty, our webinars with lawyers became a lifeline for hundreds of people. We explained new rules, debunked rumors, and gave concrete recommendations. Refugees felt that they were not alone - that there were people who could help them navigate the system.

Adaptation is not just about help with documents. It is about creating the fabric of a community where everyone feels that there are people nearby who are ready to support, explain, and help during the most difficult and confusing times. We help not only to understand the system, but also to build a space where fear gradually gives way to confidence, and uncertainty to hope.

Advocacy Project

In 2025, RADR delegates participated twice in the largest advocacy campaigns in support of Ukraine - the Ukraine Action Summit.

In April, more than 600 delegates from all 50 states gathered in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. Among them were RADR representatives from Florida and New York.

We met with lawmakers, explained our position, and called for:

not recognizing Russia’s territorial seizures;
using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine;
returning all abducted Ukrainian children;
achieving a just peace without freezing the conflict.

In October, RADR delegates again gathered in Washington for the fall UAS advocacy. More than 600 participants, the same demands, the same determination. We spoke about implementing the REPO Act, strengthening sanctions, and the fact that a strong Ukraine means a safe Europe and a stable world.

On February 21, on the eve of the third anniversary of the war, RADR received a certificate from the New York State Assembly and an award from the Heart & Valor Foundation. This recognition of our work is important - but most importantly, it is recognition that anti-war Russians can and must be part of the struggle for Ukraine’s freedom.

We are the only Russian organization that has consistently participated in Ukrainian advocacy in the U.S. Congress for three consecutive years. This is our contribution to the common cause. This is our way of showing: not all Russians support the war. There are those who stand with the victim, not the aggressor.

Collaboration and Cooperation

RADR is part of a large movement of Russian anti-war emigration, part of a global struggle for democracy and human rights. And in 2025, we actively sought allies, built bridges, and engaged in dialogue.

From April 14 to 17, a historic conference dedicated to the rights of Indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East was held on Orcas Island in Washington State. It was the first forum of its kind where representatives of Indigenous peoples, Russian civil society, scholars, politicians, and human rights defenders openly discussed Russian colonialism, the rights of peoples, and what the future after the fall of the dictatorship should look like.

RADR, together with the International Indigenous Fund “Batani”, co-organized this conference. We are proud to have signed the “Orcas Island Declaration: A Statement of Reconciliation and Respect” - a document that acknowledges historical injustice and commits to building a future based on equality and respect.

This is important to us: the pursuit of democracy in Russia goes hand in hand with recognizing the rights of Russia’s peoples, who have been oppressed by authoritarian power for centuries. Decolonial discourse is not a threat - it is, above all, a necessary dismantling of the imperial vertical paradigm.

Also in April 2025, at the UN headquarters in New York, RADR, with the support of the Batani Fund, organized a roundtable of Russian civil society representatives in the U.S. with Mariana Katzarova, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia. We invited experts from various areas of Russian civil society to the dialogue - RADR coordinators, the head of the Batani Foundation’s board Pavel Sulyandziga, sociologist and head of the Russian-American Scholars Association (RASA) Sergey Erofeev (also a member of the T-Invariant Coordination Council), the head of the Liberty Forward student organization Violetta Soboleva, a representative of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance in the U.S. Maria Milosh, members of the LGBTQ organization Ours in the USA, expert on Russian Christianity Sergey Chapnin, and human rights defender Polina Sidelnikova.

At the roundtable, participants presented analytical materials to the UN Special Rapporteur documenting mass and systematic human rights violations in Russia in their respective fields. A separate topic was the dramatic situation of Russian refugees with opposition and anti-war views who found themselves in U.S. immigration detention centers.

June 2025 brought sad news: Voice of America, which had existed since 1942, ceased broadcasting. Since RADR’s founding in 2021, VOA journalists covered our actions, interviewed coordinators, and reported on our projects. Their materials garnered hundreds of thousands of views and were cited by other outlets. RADR activists expressed deep gratitude to these professionals - for their attention, their support, and for demonstrating that the Russian diaspora in the U.S. consists of those who fight for freedom.

Meetings, dialogues, and conferences allow us not to close in on ourselves, to learn and change, to find new allies. We value this interaction and intend to continue it in 2026.

Transnational Repressions

The collective actions of Russians cause serious concern for Putin’s dictatorship - even when these people are thousands of kilometers away from Russia. And this is understandable: collective community action is the foundation of democracy.

In December 2023, RADR was declared an “undesirable organization” in Russia, and already in December 2024, RADR activist from Miami, Raisa Boiko, was fined by a Russian court for participating in our organization’s actions. A simple social media post became the basis for an administrative case against her.

In May 2025, RADR coordinators Dmitry and Nadia Valuev were added to Russia’s official register of terrorists, and a criminal case was opened against them for organizing the financing of terrorist activities. Dmitry and Nadia have never participated in any terrorist activity, and these actions by Putin’s dictatorship are nothing more than an attempt to intimidate and pressure the organization’s activists, to silence them and force them to cease their work. An attempt that will not succeed.

On July 2, 2025, a State Duma committee appealed to the Prosecutor General to investigate the activities of more than 100 activists and groups abroad - including RADR - for supporting an open letter to the NATO summit calling for assistance to Ukraine.

These repressions are not a source of pride. But they show that the dictatorship is watching our work and is seriously troubled by our achievements. It is concerned that we are demonstrating a real alternative to the world - that there are other Russians, opposed to dictatorship and war. And these repressions only strengthen our determination to continue.