Aleksandr Skobov

Aleksandr Skobov (born 4 November 1957) is a Russian historian, activist and Soviet dissident.

Skobov has been convicted and subjected to punitive psychiatry for ″anti-Soviet propaganda″ twice, one time in 1976 and the other in 1982.

In 1981 following his release, he joined the dissident group Free Interprofessional Association of Workers, which led the first attempt to create an independent trade union in the Soviet Union. In 1982, he was once again sentenced to psychiatric treatment, this time for writing a samizdat article where he defended Chile's former socialist president, Salvador Allende, who had died in unclear circumstances in 1973, and criticized the dictator Augusto Pinochet. The article was deemed "anti-Soviet propaganda." He spent five years in the hospital, being released during the summer in 1987, the initial phase of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalization campaign.

In July 2024, Novaya Gazeta published a letter Skobov had sent to his wife, it was published with an introduction written by opposition politician Leonid Gozman, who described Skobov as ″not simply a hero but a Saint in the direct Biblical sense″ and his letter as ″a fantastic document″. Gozman described the letter as Skobov avoiding pathos and thinking about his influence on others, but wanting ″today's young people who bear the brunt of the regime's repression know that the Soviet dissidents are standing alongside them.″

In March 2025, Skobov was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his social media post supporting a 2022 Ukrainian strike on the Crimean Bridge, and his alleged involvement with the opposition group Free Russia Forum. Observers, including associate director for the Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division, Tanya Lokshina, who described the sentence as ″draconian″, said that the case highlighted that the repression in Russia now exceeds parts of the Soviet period. In his final statement before sentencing, Skobov again condemned the war in Ukraine and the Putin regime.

Skobov's closing statement in the trial in full:

In April 2026, Skobov lodged an appeal in order to call on European countries to join the Russo-Ukrainian war and defeat the Russian Federation while in prison. He also used the appeal hearing to tell his wife he was ″doing everything possible to meet the Ecuadorian frog″, referring to the toxin used to murder the imprisoned Alexei Navalny.