Russian opposition figure facing up to 25 years in jail tells Moscow court he stands by all of his political statements

Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who faces up to a quarter of a century in jail on treason charges, has told a Moscow court that he stood by all of his political statements and said his prosecution resembled one of Joseph Stalin’s show trials.

Kara-Murza, 41, who holds Russian and British passports, has denied several charges including treason and spreading false information about the Russian army. Prosecutors have requested a 25-year prison sentence.

Yury Dmitriyev’s term increased to 15 years on charges supporters say are punishment for exposing Soviet-era crimes

A Russian court has increased a jail sentence for the Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev to a total of 15 years on charges his supporters say are punishment for his work exposing Stalin-era crimes.

Supporters say Dmitriyev, 65, is being targeted because of his efforts to expose the horrors of the Soviet era under Joseph Stalin.

Millions of Soviet citizens were sent to vast network of prison camps under Stalin. Now their descendants seek recompense

Alisa Meissner is paying to this day for the Soviet Union’s decision to exile her whole family from Moscow for their German heritage.

She still lives in a town just 30 miles from the gulag village where her family were sent in the 1940s after the outbreak of the second world war. And despite the rehabilitation of her exiled family, the denunciation of Joseph Stalin and the collapse of the Soviet Union, she has never been able to leave.