The Judge Who Banned the "Non-Existent": A Review of Novaya Gazeta's Article on Oleg Nefedov

Judge Oleg Nefedov during the announcement of the ruling to suspend the ban on the activities of the Taliban movement in Russia. Photo: AP / TASS

On 21 May, Novaya Gazeta published an article by journalists Tatiana Britskaya and Svetlana Vidanova about Oleg Nefedov, a judge of the Supreme Court of Russia. The occasion was that on 26 May the Supreme Qualification Collegium of Judges was due to consider his candidacy for chair of the judicial collegium for civil cases. The authors describe him as a judge whose rulings have allowed dozens of NGOs to be shut down, and they go through the cases he has handled in detail.

A specialist in "phantoms"

According to the outlet, Nefedov is the author of rulings that declared extremist "movements" with no charter and no list of members: the "International LGBT Movement," the "International Satanism Movement" and the "Anti-Russian Separatist Movement." In April 2026 he declared the International Memorial Movement extremist and banned it. The court heard the claim against the "LGBT movement" in four hours, behind closed doors. Even the activists it concerned were not admitted to the hearing. Novaya Gazeta estimates that after this ruling, Russian courts handed down more than a hundred guilty rulings for "participation" in such a movement.

Other high-profile cases

In May 2023, Nefedov liquidated the PARNAS party. It had 44 regional branches, but after the annexation of new territories, by the court's logic, it needed more than half of 89 regions. His signature is on the refusal to register Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin as candidates in the presidential election. On 27 November 2025, he designated the American legal entity of the Anti-Corruption Foundation a terrorist organization. The court made the same ruling on the Anti-War Committee of Russia and Ilya Ponomarev's "Congress of People's Deputies." The authors also recall Alexei Navalny's lawsuits: over limits on writing materials in the punishment cell, over 15 minutes allowed for meals, and over the ban on keeping more than two religious books. Nefedov rejected all three, citing the "limited space in the cell." In April 2025, he suspended the ban on the Taliban in Russia.

What this means for Daria Egereva and Natalia Leongardt

A separate section of the article is devoted to the "Anti-Russian Separatist Movement." According to the authors, following Nefedov's ruling, ethnic associations began to be added to lists of extremist and terrorist organizations. The outlet writes that 172 Indigenous organizations are already on the banned list. Criminal cases against individuals followed: Selkup activist Daria Egereva and Indigenous rights defender Natalia Leongardt are in pre-trial detention. Novaya Gazeta believes the ruling made it easier to prosecute people who work to preserve their identity and to secure guarantees of Indigenous peoples' rights. In the authors' view, security services now have a legal basis to see separatism in such activity.

How these cases are built also matters. The same pattern repeats: the Ministry of Justice asks the court to ban a "movement," the court grants the claim, most often behind closed doors, and the ban is then applied to specific people. This is what happened in the LGBT cases, with the "Satanists" and with Memorial, and, in the outlet's view, with Indigenous peoples' associations.

Free Daria and Natalia!