In a social media video, a young Russian teenager holds a solo protest by showing anti-government slogans that read  "Freedom for political prisoners," or "I am against Putin." 

We can immediately sense that this boy, Arseny Turbin, who is only 14 years old at the time, is committed to social justice. But few would imagine that his courageous, if somewhat naive, activism might in any way threaten the power of Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Yet in a country where crackdown on dissent is widespread, such posts — even when they don't go viral — apparently carry enough threat to attract the authorities' attention.

Turbin is currently serving a five-year prison sentence, making him one of Russia's youngest political prisoners.

Silencing dissidents through imprisonment

Political prisoners are known in Russia as "Politzek." The term is the namesake for a new documentary film on the country's silenced dissidents: "Politzek: Voices that Defy the Kremlin." Co-produced by DW, along with France TV, RTBF, vrt and SWR, it premieres on November 27.

Directed and written by Manon Loizeau, Ekaterina Mamontova and Sacha Koulaeva, the documentary was filmed covertly over the course of nearly a year.

At its heart are the personal stories of the prisoners, along with the campaigns by families and friends to have them released.

Two prominent activists released in prisoner swap

Russian artist Sasha Skochilenko is a young woman who was sentenced to seven years in prison for replacing price tags in supermarkets with stickers criticizing Russia's war in Ukraine.

In "Politzek," we follow Sasha's fate through her mother's campaign to have the young activist freed.

Similarly, the case of Oleg Orlov is portrayed through various actions undertaken by his wife, Tatiana Kasatkina.

Orlov is the co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization Memorial, which has been banned in Russia. In February 2024, he was imprisoned for having "discredited" the Russian army.

Oleg Orlov and Sasha Skochilenko were both released in August 2024 as part of a major prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries.

An absurdist trial

However, many more dissidents remain imprisoned. According to independent monitors OVD-Info, there are currently 1,586 political prisoners in Russia.

Among them are two other women portrayed in the documentary, theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk.

They have been found guilty of "justifying terrorism" through a play they staged in 2021.

Their work, "Finist, the Brave Falcon," is about Russian women who are lured into marrying Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Syria. The production, which had a clear anti-terrorist tenor, won two Golden Masks — Russia's most prestigious national theater award — and had also obtained support from the Russian Culture Ministry.

Yet Berkovich and Petriychuk were sentenced to six years each in prison.

The documentary follows their kafkaesque trial leading to a court ruling that embodies the Kremlin's crackdown on free expression.

Meanwhile, Arseny Turbin, who is now 17 years old, remains in prison. He has been transferred to a penal colony in Perm, which is more than 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) away from his home town of Livny — making it even more difficult for his mother, Irina Turbina, to visit him. She reports that her son experienced violence from fellow inmates that left him in a critical mental and physical state.

The film also provides a glimpse into the harsh conditions of Russia's penal colonies through the work of Anna Karetnikova, a human rights activist and former leading analyst at the Moscow Federal Penitentiary Service.

The power of a support network

"Politzek: Voices that Defy the Kremlin" also shows the crucial work of exiled Russian dissidents as they pursue advocacy and aid work for political prisoners jailed in their home country.

Sending letters of moral support to prisoners is also shown to be vital since it reminds them — and the Russian regime — that they are not forgotten.

Such a support network could perhaps have prevented the tragic fate of Pavel Kushnir, an accomplished pianist who had studied at Moscow's Tchaikovsky conservatory.

Kushnir had been locked up in a remote Siberian jail due to his four anti-war videos posted on his YouTube channel, which had just five subscribers.

He died in prison after going on a hunger strike, only four days before the prisoner swap that would have freed him, and that was widely covered by the media. But no one knew about Kushnir's case. He had been left isolated and without support because there was no local network of dissidents, noted activists after his death.

Some of his unpublished books and a recording of a piano concert were posthumously released, and he is now remembered as an anti-war icon.

Like prominent Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, who also died while in a penal colony, these activists leave behind a legacy of resistance — even in death — for the many who hope to see their country freed from authoritarianism.

"Politzek: Voices that Defy the Kremlin" will be available on DW Documentary on December 6 and within the following week on DW's Arabic, Spanish, Indonesian and Hindi documentary channels.

Edited by: Stuart Braun