The Russian polling organisation, Levada, conducted a poll on “Public opinion on political prisoners, the May 6 case, and the Kirovles case” which revealed that just under half of Russians believe that there are political prisoners in Russia.

The poll showed that 37 per cent of those aware of political oppression in Russia associate politically motivated persecution with the name of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the highest number of any Russian political prisoner. This was followed by Alexey Navalny and Sergey Magnitsky. 12 per cent of respondents regarded the most famous political prisoner to be Platon Lebedev, who was the fourth most cited in the poll.

In contrast, just over half of those polled could not name even one political prisoner. The survey polled more than a thousand people from nearly 50 regions.