Moscow’s municipal court has ordered the dissolution of the Zakharov Center, one of Russia’s last remaining human rights institutions, as part of the pogrom the Russian authorities have unleashed against any critical voice since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In its announcement, the court states that the Zakharov Center, named after Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Zakharov, illegally organized conferences and exhibitions in Russia outside of its local “zone of activity” provided for in its charter.

It is at least the third time that the Russian authorities have used this reason to dismantle an organization with critical views.

In January, for the same reason, the same court ordered the dissolution of the Moscow Helsinki Group, the oldest non-governmental human rights organization in Russia. It was followed in April by the Sova Center for the Study of Racism and Xenophobia.

Last spring, the Zakharov Center was evicted from its historic headquarters in Moscow. For thirty years, this historic building, emblematic of Russian civil society, has hosted hundreds of debates and cultural events. The museum of the Center for the crimes of the Soviet period also operated there.

There also thousands of people gathered to pay their respects in front of the coffin of the murdered dissident, opponent of the Kremlin, Boris Nemtsov.

In April, the Russian Ministry of Justice began an audit of the Zakharov Center, which had been labeled a “foreign agent” since 2014. This process resulted in its dissolution.

The director of the Zakharov Center, Sergei Lukashevsky, who is in exile in Germany, has told AFP that in the event of its dissolution, the non-governmental organization would be reconstituted as a “cooperative”.

At the end of 2021, the Russian judiciary dissolved the Memorial organization, a pillar of the defense of human rights and the preservation of the memory of the victims of Soviet crimes.