War in Ukraine LIVE: Macron salutes a Nobel Peace Prize to “human rights defenders in Europe” – 20 Minutes

12:44 p.m .: Memorial, the conscience of Russia banished by PutinThe emblematic Russian NGO Memorial, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has shed light for three decades on the Stalinist purges, then the repressions in contemporary Russia of Vladimir Putin , before becoming a victim herself. Last winter, the Russian justice had pronounced the dissolution of Memorial for violations of a controversial law on “foreign agents”, a decision which had shocked in the West as in Russia and sparked an avalanche of condemnations. dissolution of this pillar of Russian civil society, symbol of the democratization of the 1990s after the collapse of the USSR, had preceded the offensive in Ukraine by a few weeks. Since then, the Kremlin has further stepped up the repression of voices denouncing its military campaign, with thousands of fines and heavy prison sentences. attracting the enmity of many officials and reprisals going as far as assassination. From Stalinist crimes to abuses in Chechnya, the organization, created by Soviet dissidents including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, was authoritative through its rigorous investigations, in particular into the abuses of Russian paramilitaries in Syria.