The side event examined prevalent legal strategies and frameworks utilized by authoritarian regimes in Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) to impede civil society’s role in public health improvement, protection of human rights, and the delivery of life-saving harm reduction services.

The Andrey Rylkov Foundation urges countries to stop the war on drugs and provide full rehabilitation to the victims! On 26 June, the Andrey Rylkov Foundation joins the global advocacy campaign, Support Don’t Punish Day, to shed light on the devastating consequences of the War on Drugs in Russia and its expansion into Ukraine. Collaborating with Drugreporter, the Foundation releases a short video exposing the atrocities inflicted by punitive drug policies, aiming to raise global awareness and demand urgent change. 

We wanted to remember it, to make sure it would never be forgotten. On 29 August, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched an operation to liberate the right bank of Kherson Oblast. And despite the regime of silence imposed by the General Staff, despite the disgusting communications, good news reached us from time to time.

Summer came to Kherson, with thick morning mists and frog concerts at night. Sweet cherries, juicy apples, and all of the many things that the soil generously provides began to appear. And with them came blackouts and mobile phone disconnection.

Imagine for a moment that you have been deprived of the ability to do the usual routine things; to leave the house whenever you like, to walk wherever you like, to go to the cinema, museums, or the theatre, to drink coffee with friends at the corner café, to buy something at the shop, to go to a neighbouring town or to another country. When – in one moment – you find yourself under occupation, you lose everything that your life consisted of.

We found out about the war on the morning of 24 February. All the news channels were screaming about it. We were literally crushed by the news: missile attacks on Kiev, Odessa, Dnipro, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk… At the same time gigantic military columns were heading towards Kiev, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odessa…

The Charitable Fund Humanitarian Action in Saint Petersburg is fighting back against the crackdown on harm reduction organisations: a court recently annulled the government decision to include them in the infamous foreign agent list. We interviewed Alexei Lahov, Director of Development of the NGO.    

More than 400 professionals and community activists gathered in Prague to take part in the 5th European Harm Reduction Conference. 

The animated documentary is based on the true story of Kostya Proletarsky, a drug user and HIV activist who died as a result of mistreatment and torture at a Russian prison. The animation features original audio interviews with Kostya and his mother Irina, and aims to commemorate Kostya and many others who have not survived prisons around the world. 

Ivan Anoshkin’s life is a chronicle of the state’s crimes against human beings and his path to strength, truth, and freedom.