Veteran human rights defender freed in exchange says Russia is sliding back to Stalinist days
BERLIN: Oleg Orlov, a human rights activist since the 1980s, thought Russia had turned a corner when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became the leader.
But then Vladimir Putin came to power, crushed dissent and launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine. Eventually, the 71-year-old Orlov himself was thrown into prison for opposing the war. He was released last week in the largest east-west prisoner swap since the Cold War and forced into exile – just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth.
In an interview with The Associated Press in Berlin on Thursday, Orlov criticized the scale and brutality of the crackdown under Putin, with people jailed for merely criticizing the authorities, something not seen since the dictator Joseph Stalin.
And he promises to continue his work to free the many political prisoners in Russia and keep their names in the spotlight.
“We are slipping into Stalinist times,” said Orlov, who showed signs of weariness at times from a hectic schedule of media interviews in the week since his release.
In February, he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for writing an anti-war article. When he was unexpectedly transferred from a prison in central Russia last month in what ultimately led to a prisoner swap on August 1, he was awaiting transfer to a penal colony after losing an appeal.
The move was a complete surprise, he told the AP.
First, he was told to write a clemency petition addressed to Putin — which he said he flatly refused. A few days later, he was loaded into a van and, to his astonishment, taken to Samara airport and taken to Moscow.
“To find yourself on a plane, among free people, straight from prison – a very strange feeling,” Orlov said.
Three more days followed in Moscow's infamous Lefortovo prison, isolated in his cell, where he wrote a complaint that he had been denied access to his lawyer. He was then shown the document that he had been pardoned. He was again put on a plane, this time from Russia, with other freed dissidents, and was welcomed in Germany by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
He laughed as he remembered seeing familiar faces on the bus to the airport—artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko, imprisoned for a small anti-war protest, opposition politician Andrei Pivovarov and others.
“So when the state security officer (on the bus) announced that it was a change, we already understood it well,” he said.
While he was detained in Lefortovo, Orlov suspected that another criminal trial was being prepared against him. As for what charges authorities might bring, he said, “They'd have no problem finding (one).”
“The repressive machinery… has been set in motion and is running on its own,” said the veteran human rights defender. “The machine works to maintain itself and can only intensify the repression, make it harder.”
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Memorial, which Orlov co-founded, says more than 760 political prisoners remain in prison in Russia. Another prominent rights group, OVD-Info, reports that over 1,300 are currently imprisoned in politically motivated cases.
Some of them face isolation, without access to lawyers or doctors, often at the behest of the authorities, Orlov said.
Opposition politicians, such as the late Alexei Navalny or the recently exchanged Vladimir Kara-Murza, were kept in such isolated conditions in remote penal colonies and their health deteriorated.
“My experience was much easier than that of many others,” Orlov said. Prison officials “never applied complete lawlessness to me,” he added, “I was not singled out from the crowd.”
Still, he said, it's important to support the growing number of those being prosecuted for political reasons, from keeping their plight in the headlines to sending letters and care packages and helping their families.
In prison, “there's always that feeling of worrying about your family. Knowing that your family is going to be okay really helps to feel at peace. And in prison, the most important thing is not to despair and feel calm,” said Orlov.
In the troubled days since beginning his new life in exile, which he never sought, Orlov has had little time to process his newfound freedom and has yet to be reunited with his wife.
But he is determined to continue his work with Memorial, saying there are things advocates outside of Russia can still do, such as maintaining a database of political prisoners and coordinating aid for those behind bars.
But a complete halt to repression will only happen when Putin's “repressive, terrorist regime” ceases to exist, he says.
