Anastasia Rybachenko

Anastasia Rybachenko (Russian: Анастасия Александровна Рыбаченко) (born 11 September 1991, Moscow) is a Russian political and civic activist. She worked as spokesperson with the "Solidarnost" movement and previously as the Head of the Youth Committee.

Education

Rybachenko studied Political science at the State Academic University for the Humanities in Moscow and graduated with a major in International Relations from Tallinn University of Technology.^[1] She earned her Master's degree from Freie Universität Berlin in 2016.

Political career

Since December 2008, Rybachenko was a member of the democratic movement "Solidarnost", which was founded around the same time. She worked at the political campaign staff of Sergei Davidis, a candidate in the 2009 Moscow City Duma election.^[2]

In 2010, Rybachenko was elected to the Political Council of Solidarnost in Moscow^[3] and was the youngest member of the management board. In 2011, she was re-elected.^[4]

Since 2010, Rybachenko represented Solidarnost at the Coordination Committee of the Strategy-31 campaign. The participating organizations, among them the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Memorial human rights centre and the Other Russia party, organized a series of civic protests in support of the right to peaceful assembly guaranteed by Article 31 of the Russian Constitution.^[5]

In March 2010, Rybachenko became the Head of the Youth Committee of Solidarnost in Moscow.^[6] She organized lectures of politicians and other public figures at Moscow universities (Yulia Latynina, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Valery Panyushkin, Mikhail Delyagin, Alexei Navalny and lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky).

In December 2010, Rybachenko was among the observers of the Presidential election in Belarus. Following the demonstration of protest on December 19, in Minsk, Rybachenko initiated a campaign in Moscow to support the Russian citizens arrested in Belarus. Activists of Solidarnost collected signatures,^[7] maintained media campaign and negotiated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.^[8][9] The campaigners persuaded the Russian authorities to engage more actively in the cases of two Russian citizens Ivan Gaponov and Artyom Breus, and later on in the case of Belarussian citizen Fedor Mirzayanov, in order to, as activists maintained, represent interests of his father, a citizen of Russia.^[10] While Gaponov and Breus were released, in the case of Mirzayanov activists only achieved representatives of the Russian embassy in Minsk to observe the trial,^[11][12] but Mirzayanov was nevertheless sentenced to three years in prison.

In March 2012, Rybachenko became the Head of the Press Office of Solidarnost in Moscow.^[13] She recruited and trained volunteers for the Press Office, managed communications with media, in particular for the campaign of Solidarnost to support Yevgeny Urlashov in the mayoral election in the large Russian city of Yaroslavl.^[14][15][16]

On May 6, 2012, Rybachenko was one of many thousands who demonstrated in Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, to support fair elections of the President of Russia. As the Russian government began suppressing independent civic activities following the demonstration, Rybachenko has been among those who left Russia. She studied in Estonia and then in Germany and participated in several political initiatives and publications.^[17][18][19]

References