Ilya Yashin announces the target of his next research paper: United Russia

Ilya Yashin, prominent member of Russia's anti-Kremlin democratic opposition, says he's preparing to release his next white paper, this time targeting alleged ties between United Russia, the country's ruling political party, and organized crime. Yashin says he plans to publish the report by the end of the month.

Yashin says he spent the past two months gathering research for the white paper, which argues that United Russia has become a mechanism for social mobility among organized crime, enabling the mob to integrate itself into Russian politics. Yashin plans to print 20,000 copies of the report and distribute them in Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

The report will be released weeks before Russia's parliamentary elections in September. Yashin says he hopes fellow opposition members will be able to make use of his research in the last of the campaign.

Earlier this year, Yashin published a report on Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov, detailing Kadyrov's human rights abuses. In May 2015, Yashin presented the report “Putin. The War,” which investigated Russian involvement in the eastern Ukraine conflict and Crimea. This report was originally a project by Boris Nemtsov. After Nemtsov was killed in Moscow on February 27, 2015, Yashin and others completed the report on his behalf.