Boris Todaev is a political prisoner

The 66-year-old editor-in-chief of the Elista newspaper Narn is accused of justifying Nazism for publishing an article about the victims of the deportation of the Kalmyk people

Boris Todaev is a resident of Elista, a Kalmyk activist and editor-in-chief of the unregistered Elista newspaper Narn (“Sun”). In 1989, he was one of the founders of the Kalmykia Popular Front and actively participated in the emerging democratic movement in the republic. In 2023, Todaev ran for election to the parliament of Kalmykia as a candidate for the A Just Russia party. On the evening of September 10, 2023, shortly before the vote count began, unknown individuals punctured the tyres of his car.

On September 3, 2026, Boris Todaev was placed under house arrest in a case concerning the justification of Nazism (Part 4 of Article 354.1 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to the prosecution, the journalist insulted the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland by using the mass media to do so.

The basis for Todaev’s prosecution was an issue of Narn published in December 2025 and dedicated to the anniversary of the deportation of the Kalmyk people. Among other things, the issue featured the account of an elderly woman from the republic. She recounted how her mother, who was ethnically Russian, had been allowed to remain in Kalmykia, while the children she had with her Kalmyk husband were ordered to be deported. However, their mother went with them to Siberia. The article concluded with the author’s words: “Her father was fighting the Nazis at the front at the time, while other Nazis, in the guise of Soviet soldiers, were deporting his children, his family, to cold Siberia. Forever.”

We believe that Boris Todaev’s prosecution over this publication is part of the Russian authorities’ persistent efforts to rehabilitate Stalinism, and that the Criminal Code article under which the activist is being prosecuted is legally unfounded and repressive. Its vague wording makes it possible to prosecute people for their interpretation of historical facts, as Todaev’s case clearly demonstrates.

The prosecution of a Kalmyk activist under an article concerning the justification of Nazism appears particularly absurd: by calling Soviet soldiers Nazis, he was not attempting to rehabilitate Nazism but, on the contrary, invoking it as an unequivocal evil.

At the same time, describing those who carried out the deportation on ethnic grounds — which, according to some estimates, resulted in the deaths of more than a third of the Kalmyk people — as Nazis seems entirely justified, unlike the way Russian propagandists often use the term.

A detailed description of Todaev’s case and of our position is available on our website.

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