HRC63 - NB8 Statement - ID with the SR on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation

63rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
Item 4: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation
Statement delivered by Latvia on behalf of the Nordic-Baltic States
21 September 2026

The Nordic-Baltic States strongly support the Special Rapporteur’s mandate.

We remain gravely concerned about the continuing, dramatic erosion of human rights in Russia.

Civil society has been severely eroded, fundamental freedoms dismantled, and anyone perceived to be opposed to the Government face repression.

Anti-war voices, political opponents, journalists, human rights defenders are silenced, imprisoned or forced into exile. Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees are tortured, ill-treated and executed. In the occupied territories of Ukraine, Russia continues to suppress fundamental freedoms, persecute those opposing the occupation, indoctrinate and militarise Ukrainian children, and unlawfully deport and forcibly transfer them.

Last weekend’s State Duma elections were neither free nor fair. By banning anti-war politicians from running, the regime has once again shown its fear of people and deprived them of real choice.

The repressions do not stop at Russia’s borders. Recent legislative measures impose wide-ranging restrictions on Russian exiles, escalating repression at home and transnational repression abroad.

Russia also seeks to destabilise democratic societies through information manipulation, interference in democratic processes and thus abuses the very human rights principles it perpetuates to defend, but systematically violates at home.

This forms a part of Russia’s broader effort to undermine international law through politically motivated distortions of legal norms.

We call on Russia to end discrimination and repression on all grounds, and to ensure that perpetrators of all human rights violations are held accountable. The judgments of the European Court of Human Rights have laid bare the scale and gravity of human rights violations by Russia and in Russia. Russia must comply with these judgments.