Veteran human rights advocate freed in swap says Russia is sliding back toward Stalinist times

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BERLIN: A human rights activist since the 1980s, Oleg Orlov thought Russia had turned a corner when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became leader. But then Vladimir Putin came to power, crushing dissent and launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Eventually, the 71-year-old Orlov was himself thrown into prison for opposing the war. Freed last week in the biggest prisoner swap between East and West since the Cold War, he was forced into exile, just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth.

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