Alexei Aleksandrovich Gorinov, is a lawyer and Moscow municipal deputy aligned with the Solidarnost movement. As a member of the Krasnoselsky District Council, he was sentenced to seven years in prison after condemning a plan to hold a children’s dance and art contest amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He was the first person sentenced under new Russian laws, making him the first individual to refuse to admit guilt while opposing the war in Ukraine.

Gorinov has been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin’s suppression of civil liberities and human rights in Russia, and he was a key organizer of the Peace Marches held in 2014 against the illegal annexation of Crimea.
In April 2022, he was arrested for denouncing Russia’s military actions and later imprisoned for calling the war illegal and criminal.

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Maria Ponomarenko is a Russian journalist and activist for RusNews, a publication dedicated to civil activism and protests in Russia.

In 2020, Russian authorities began threatening her after she revealed corruption within the government and the refusal by local politicians to provide housing for orphans.

Since February 2023, she has been serving a six-year prison sentence for sharing a social media post denouncing the bombing of a theater in Mariupol by the Russian army and has been banned from working as a journalist.

In prison, Ponomarenko has been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, denied medical treatment, and forcibly medicated with unknown drugs.