Veteran human rights activist freed in swap says Russia is returning to Stalinist times
BERLIN: A human rights activist since the 1980s, Oleg Orlov thought Russia had changed course when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became the leader.
But then Vladimir Putin came to power, crushing dissent and launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Eventually, 71-year-old Orlov was thrown into prison himself for opposing the war. Freed last week in the largest prisoner swap between East and West since the Cold War, he was forced into exile, just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth.
In an interview with The Associated Press in Berlin on Thursday, Orlov denounced the scale and severity of repression under Putin, with people jailed for criticizing the authorities on a scale not seen since the days of dictator Josef Stalin.
And he pledges to continue his work to free Russia's many political prisoners and keep their names in the spotlight.
“We are sliding into the Stalin era,” said Orlov, who at times showed signs of fatigue from a busy schedule of media interviews in the week after his release.
He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in February for writing an anti-war article. When he was unexpectedly transferred last month from a prison in central Russia in what ultimately led to the August 1 prisoner swap, he was awaiting transfer to a penal colony after losing an appeal.
The move came as a complete surprise, he told the AP.
First, he was asked to write a request for clemency addressed to Putin, which he said he categorically refused. Days later, he was put in a van and taken, to his amazement, to the Samara airport and flown to Moscow.
“To be on a plane, among free people, just out of prison: it’s a really strange feeling,” Orlov said.
Three more days followed in Moscow's notorious Lefortovo prison, isolated in his cell, where he wrote a complaint that he had been denied access to his lawyer. He was then shown a document stating that he had been pardoned. He was put on a plane again, this time from Russia, with other freed dissidents, and was welcomed in Germany by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
He smiled when 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 a state security officer announced (on the bus) that it was an exchange, we already understood it perfectly,” he said.
While detained in Lefortovo, however, Orlov suspected that another criminal case was being prepared against him. As for the charges the authorities might bring, he said: “They would find (one) without any problems.”
“The repressive machine… has been set in motion and it is working by itself,” the veteran human rights advocate said. “The machine is working to sustain itself and can only intensify the repression, make it harsher.”
Memorial, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group co-founded by Orlov, says more than 760 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Russia. Another prominent human rights group, OVD-Info, says more than 1,300 are currently incarcerated in politically motivated cases.
Some of them are forced into solitary confinement, without access to lawyers or doctors, often by order of the authorities, Orlov said.
Opposition politicians, such as the late Alexei Navalny or the recently traded Vladimir Kara-Murza, were held in solitary confinement in remote penal colonies and their health deteriorated.
“My experience was much simpler than that of many others,” Orlov said. Prison officials “never exercised complete lawlessness toward me,” he added, “I was not isolated from the masses.”
However, he said it was important to support the growing number of those being persecuted for political reasons by keeping their plight in the headlines, sending them letters and care packages, and helping their families.
In prison, “there's always this feeling of worry about your family. If you know that your family is going to be okay, it really helps you feel peace. And in prison that's the most important thing: not to despair and to feel peace of mind,” Orlov said.
In the frantic 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 and says there are things supporters can still do from outside Russia, such as maintaining the database of political prisoners and coordinating assistance to those behind bars.
However, according to him, the end of the repressions will come only when Putin's “repressive and terrorist regime” ceases to exist.
