The forum was founded in March 2016 by Garry Kasparov and Ivan Tyutrin [ru], the former executive director of the Russian democratic movement Solidarnost.

[9] Over the years, Garry Kasparov, Oleg Sentsov, Sergei Guriev, Arkady Babchenko, Gennady Gudkov, Marat Gelman, Evgeny Chichvarkin, Ilya Ponomarev, Olga Romanova, Alfred Koch, Leonid Nevzlin, Masha Gessen, Alexander Goldfarb, Yevgeny Kiselyov, Leonid Gozman, Roman Dobrokhotov, Andrey Illarionov, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Alexey (Professor) Lebedinsky [ru], Mark Feygin, Andrei Soldatov, Artemy Troitsky, Maria Alyokhina, Alexander Morozov, Ayder Muzhdabaev, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Vygaudas Ušackas, Andrey Piontkovsky, Andrius Kubilius, Igor Chubais, Lev Ponomaryov, Mikhail Krutikhin [ru], Boris Reitschuster, Yevgeniya Chirikova, Bozhena Rynska, Mikhail Svetov, David Satter, Tomas Venclova, Alexander Kynev, Elena Fanailova, Lilia Shevtsova, Konstantin Eggert (Journalist) [ru], Andrei Sannikov, Arkady Yankovsky, Igor Eidman [de], Elena Lukyanova [ru], Igor Yakovenko [ru], Sergey Gulyaev  [ru] have taken part in the forum.

[13] In response, the editorial committee of the Forum published a commentary by Vadim Sidorov, in which he criticized this request due to the lack of the expressed will of the people's concern and the high proportion of the Russian population in these territories.

The key topics of the 8th Forum include change and development of the repressive apparatus and ways to resist repressions, possible strategies of the Russian opposition concerning participation in elections, past elections to the Moscow City Duma, environmental protests in the regions, the socio-economic situation in Russia, prospects for the development of Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Donbas, prospects and threats to the integration of Russia and Belarus.

[20] It was attended by Sergei Guriev, Garry Kasparov, Leonid Gozman, Mikhail Krutikhin, Elena Lukyanova, Gennady Gudkov, Olga Romanova, Andrei Soldatov, Alexander Kynev, Andrey Piontkovsky, Leonid Nevzlin, Lev Ponomaryov, Andrey Illarionov, Konstantin Eggert, Ilya Ponomarev, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Boris Reitschuster, Alexander Morozov, Andrei Sannikov, Marat Gelman, Igor Yakovenko, Yevgeniya Chirikova, Irina Borogan and others.

It included Vladimir Ashurkov, Marat Gelman, Andrey Illarionov, Garry Kasparov, Daniil Konstantinov, Leonid Nevzlin, Ilya Ponomarev, Andrei Sidelnikov, Ivan Tyutrin [ru], Mark Feygin and Yevgeniya Chirikova.

[24] In March 2019, the Standing Committee of the Free Russia Forum turned to German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel with a request to prevent the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project.

“With Nord Stream 2, Russian gas supplies to the EU will be dangerously dependent on bilateral relations between Moscow and Berlin,” the open letter says.

[30] Additionally, the Standing Committee of the Forum denounced sentences given to participants in the so-called "Moscow case", calling them unjust and dictated by the desire of the Kremlin regime to destroy any centers of resistance to the electoral dictatorship of Vladimir Putin in Russia.

Among the defendants on the List are Russian officials, prominent businessmen, journalists of state and media close to the Kremlin, who, according to the authors, are responsible for the usurpation of power, violation of human rights, corruption, military aggression, and hate propaganda.

[33] In 2018, members of the Forum's Standing Committee Mark Feygin and Ivan Tyutrin [ru] traveled to Washington, D.C. to present the List to the responsible US agencies.

The grounds are his complicity in the propaganda of the Putin regime, the use of the status of an authoritative and popular publicist to legitimize the aggressive neo-imperial policy of the Russian leadership.

[40] In December 2019, representatives of the Free Russia Forum Andrey Illarionov, Ilya Ponomarev and Ivan Tyutrin [ru] presented the updated Putin List to the US Congress and several other American departments.

The official representative of the department, Maria Zakharova, commented on the situation as follows: “Once again, we are forced to state that the Lithuanian authorities continue their policy of introducing total censorship in the country and eradicating any dissent.”[44] The journalists challenged the deportation decision at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the Lithuanian authorities of violating freedom of speech.

The ECHR adopted a decision by a majority of votes, according to which the complaints of the employees of the Russia-24 TV channel were declared inadmissible, and the arguments of the Lithuanian authorities - well-founded.

The ECtHR stressed that the guarantees of freedom of expression apply to journalists if they act in good faith to disseminate information that is relevant to the facts, based on the principles of responsible journalism.

[46] On December 2, 2019, the Vilnius Regional Court satisfied the claim of the Ukrainian journalist and blogger Anatoly Shariy against the Forum of Free Russia due to the publication of slander against him.