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same year the journalist Polina Danilevich from Smolensk was fined 1000 rubles for comparing the photo of her apartment building courtyard with a photo of the same place during the German occupation. The siloviki found there a swastika.

      In September 2014, a Perm resident Eugenia Vyshigina was fined for having been tagged by one of her VKontakte “friends” in the video with “seaside partisans”. The “E” Center accused her of not rejecting, but confirming the mark on herself in this video. In May 2014 Dmitry Semyonov, a Chuvash activist of PARNAS (Party of People’s Freedom) was found guilty for reposting photographs showing the former “People’s Mayor” of Donetsk Pavel Gubarev in the uniform of the banned “Russian National Unity”, member of which he really was. The same Dmitry Semyonov was sentenced to a fine in September 2015 for having shared an interview Matvei Ganapolsky in VKontakte. The charge was based on the fact that his repost was automatically loaded with an image of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his papakha fur hat with the inscription “Death to the Russian viper.”

      Under the notion of extremism because of he vague formulation of extremism laws and the lack of clear-cut interpretation of the term makes it easy to label any opposition activity of all possible ideological orientations as extremist and be prosecuted as such. People convicted on “extremist” articles cannot participate in elections, and restricted in organizing rallies.

      Such cases indicate several tendencies. First, until recently, the sentences handed down to nationalists were against little-known people. Secondly, most recent sentences against members of Islamist groups have been imposed not for participation in banned organizations, but for heavier articles such as preparing a coup, participating in terrorist activities, etc. The share of sentences on anti-extremist legislation based on Internet evidence has recently risen to 90%21.

      To some experts, the persecution of relatively obscure individuals living far from Moscow and St. Petersburg suggest selective randomness in choosing victims. This conclusion seems highly inaccurate. The repressions have their own logic, which is especially noticeable in the persecution of protesters over the results of the 2011 State Duma election, primarily in Bolotnaya Square rally. The authorities demonstrated a firm consistency in the prosecution of those who were seen in rallies and demonstrations. At the same time, repression had one important characteristic. All of the leaders of protest actions, that is, persons from the opposition elite, came out unscathed. It is the ordinary participants who are tracked, caught and sentenced (the present tense is appropriate here). The government spares the opposition elite, feeling comfortable with them; it helps in preventing their renewal and preserving their monopoly on opposition.

      All these repressions have an institutional nature. However, totalitarianism in the making also needs the most active use of extra-institutional violence, which was a subject of to the second CEPR report, made public in the summer of 2016.

      Assaults on activists who disagreed with the authorities became a characteristic feature of Russian political life after Crimea annexation into the Russian Federation. The center’s experts collected a database of 238 cases of aggression against oppositionists and public figures. The database covers the last four years and analyzes data from the media and other open sources. Conditionally, the term “oppositionists” applies to an extremely wide range of people dissatisfied with the actions of the authorities: from unsystematic politicians participating in elections to environmentalists or urban activists trying to save the children’s playground. According to these data, in 2012 there were 35 cases of attacks on the opposition in various forms, 38 cases in 2013, 60 in 2014 and 50 cases in 2015. In addition, 55 cases were recorded in the first half of 2016.

      The authors of the report recorded thematic periods of aggression related to the socio-political agenda. In other words, for each wave of activity of oppositional-minded citizens, there appeared their own pro-governmental or patriotic social movements ready to respond to it with violence. In 2012, many attacks were aimed against those dissatisfied over conviction of Pussy Riot, a group who performed a “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Those who expressed support for the LGBT community in connection with the adoption of the homophobic law banning the promotion of homosexuality were attacked in 2013 by the Orthodox activists.

      The authors of the CEPR study attributed the increase in the number of attacks on oppositionists in 2014 to the aggravation of the domestic political situation amid the events in Ukraine and protests in this regard.

      It was the time when the organizations that support “Novorossia” with their anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western rhetoric became more active. Finally, during the entire period under review, outbreaks of aggression, especially in the regions, were observed during election campaigns.

      Many cases of violence are associated with specific political actions. Among them was a series of attacks on activists in the framework of the Peace March against the Russian policy towards Ukraine in the spring and autumn of 2014. Similar bursts of violence occurred on the eve of the anti-crisis “Spring” march in February 2015, amidst the commemorative actions in 2015 and 2016 with reference to Boris Nemtsov assassination, as well as the anniversary of the May 6 Bolotnaya Square protest rally.

      Approximately 25% of attacks are related to the electoral process. In the period of election campaigns there are attacks on candidates, observers, agitators, campaign headquarters, as well as participants in the pre-election meetings. For example, in September 2015, an attack was carried out on the Communist party candidate for the governors of the Irkutsk region Sergei Levchenko and Olga Antyukhina, the Just Russia candidate for deputies of the Kaluga legislative assembly. In November 2014 unknown people beat up Arkady Chaplygin, the leader of the Progress Party St. Petersburg branch.

      Another 25% of attacks are associated with specific problems of the local agenda. Most often, these are incidents involving environmental or urban preservation initiatives. Journalists are attacked over their local anti-corruption investigations.

      In 2012—2015, only 5—10% of attacks were committed against oppositionists and public figures with a federal level of prominence. In 2016, this share rose to almost 20%. The authors of the CEPR report attribute this to the activities of Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Kasyanov, who announced the nomination of the Democratic Alliance to the State Duma.

      Nevertheless, until now most of the attacks have been carried out against ordinary protesters, candidates for elections, members of the party and regional movements, urban preservationists, human rights defenders, environmentalists, etc. Representatives of systemic opposition parties are attacked mostly only in connection with the elections.

      Another 15% of incidents are attacks on journalists, with the largest share of such cases recorded in 2014. So, in May 2016, Oleg Kunitsyn, deputy editor of Vologda newspaper Minuta Istiny was wounded with a pistol shot by unknown assailants. In March 2016 in Kaliningrad, Igor Rudnikov, the editor of Noviye Kolesa and the deputy of the Duma was assaulted by unknown people with knives.

      In approximately 80% of the cases the attackers are unidentified persons or people without a clear connection with a particular agency. Much of the attacks (especially violent ones) are carried out by unknown persons in building entrances or on the street near the victim’s house. In such cases, one can only make assumptions about political motives and the mastermind. Sometimes employees of private security companies involved in the attacks (about 5—6% of cases for the period under investigation). These people usually attack environmental or urban preservation activists, if their protests affect someone’s commercial interests.

      However, in recent years, the percentage of attacks on oppositionists by activists openly acting on behalf of their organizations has been growing. Since 2012, this share has almost doubled, to 22% in 2016.

      These organizations represent different kind of “protective” movements of diehard conservatives. The CEPR report mentions National Liberation Movement, Yevgeny Fedorov, the United Russia deputy, Cossack associations,

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