“Letters Behind Bars”: How Artificial Intelligence Helps to Write Letters to Crimean Political Prisoners

Ukrainian human rights defenders have launched a user-friendly online tool that enables anyone to send words of solidarity to Crimean political prisoners — quickly, easily, and personally.

The Human Rights House Crimea, in partnership with the organization Crimean Process, has introduced an updated format of the initiative Letters Behind Bars — a project designed to support Crimean political prisoners held in detention on politically motivated charges.

The new functionality of the initiative involves the use of specially designed Google Forms and artificial intelligence. It allows anyone to write a letter to an imprisoned person in just a few minutes, even without prior experience or personal contacts. The process is as simple as possible: choose a form, answer a few questions, select a political prisoner, and the system will generate a sincere letter that will be delivered through official online services working with Russian prisons.

The Google Forms are available in both Ukrainian and English. All letters are translated into Russian to comply with prison censorship requirements. If a response is received, it is forwarded to the letter’s author.

Links to Google forms:

• if you are writing a letter to a political prisoner for the first time – https://bit.ly/45Ypo1T
• if you have already written a letter before – https://bit.ly/4nFUWzV

Even a single letter can be a source of support for a political prisoner living in conditions of isolation and psychological pressure. As of 2025, at least 224 Crimean political prisoners are being held in places of detention across Russia and temporarily occupied Crimea. Many of them are in a difficult psycho-emotional state, feeling a loss of hope. However, former prisoners have repeatedly stated: it was letters — even from strangers — that gave them the strength to hold on.

Among those to whom you can write:

• Iryna Danylovych is a human rights activist and journalist
• Asan Akhtemov, Vilen Temerianov, Amet Suleymanov – Crimean Tatar citizen journalists
• Emir-Usein Kuku, Server Mustafayev – Crimean Tatar human rights activists
• Bohdan Ziza is an artist and activist
• Halyna Dovhopola is a civilian with a pro-Ukrainian position
• and others imprisoned for peaceful resistance to the occupation of Crimea

You can learn more about political prisoners in the tab on our website.

The initiative was implemented with the support of the Czech organization NESEHNUTÍ.