Photo: Alexander Kazakov Pool via Agence France-Presse “Vladimir Putin has built this repressive machine over time, throughout his reign, by silencing the media, repressing, exiling and killing activists, journalists and political figures,” says Dan Storyev, news director of the English version of OVD-Info.
Magdaline Boutros
Published at 0:00
- Europe
Only about 1% to 2% of Russian political prisoners were released in the prisoner swap with the West agreed on August 1. While 16 prisoners — mostly public figures or dual nationals — were released, hundreds more — often with less media coverage — continue to languish in prison. While the Putin regime’s crackdown has intensified in the past two years, its roots go back well before the start of the war in Ukraine.
“What we’re seeing today didn’t come out of nowhere,” says Dan Storyev, news director for the English-language version of OVD-Info, a human rights media organization that documents the crackdown in Russia.
“Vladimir Putin built this repressive machine over time, throughout his reign, silencing the media, repressing, exiling and killing activists, journalists and politicians.”
It was only with the war in Ukraine that the eyes of the international community turned more insistently to this severe repression, but all the warnings were there before, he notes.
The change in tone of the Putin regime was clearly felt from 2011, analyzes Natalia Morozova, lawyer for the Human Rights Center Memorial, the organization born from the ashes of the NGO Memorial, closed in Russia in 2021 by the Putin regime.
After the difficult decade of the 1990s, the 2000s brought more lightness to the lives of Russians with, among other things, a greater opening of borders and the advent of the consumer society. At that time, “Vladimir Putin made a sort of pact with civil society, saying: you can enjoy this beautiful life, but on condition that you are not interested in politics.”
Awakening and repression
But then in September 2011, Putin, then prime minister, announced his intention to regain his post as president, ceded in 2008 to Dmitri Medvedev, so that the latter could take over the head of the government. A to-and-fro that was, to say the least, undemocratic. Then, in December of the same year, Putin's United Russia party managed to retain an absolute majority of seats in the Duma, at the cost of probable electoral fraud.
“Civil society woke up, and that’s how the first wave of protests under Putin began,” says Natalia Morozova, now exiled in France. A few months later, in the summer of 2012, the regime responded by adopting a law against “foreign agents,” designed to sideline organizations receiving support and funding from abroad.
History then repeated itself. “After each wave of protest, there were repressions and new laws that further limited the possibility of action.”
Another layer of repression was added in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, this time to crush any public dissent from the war. Anyone spreading “false information about the armed forces,” that is, information that broke with the official party narrative, could face up to 15 years in prison.
Political and religious prisoners
This ramping up of the Russian repressive machine has been accompanied, over time, by a shift in the typical profile of a political prisoner. “Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, one of the most targeted groups was religious people, including Jehovah’s Witnesses,” reports Dan Storyev. In the last two years, the main targets have become people who are opposed to the war.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000According to Memorial, there are currently at least 1,402 people being prosecuted for political or religious reasons in Russia, of whom at least 771 are behind bars. OVD-Info, which uses broader criteria to list political prisoners, paints an even darker picture: 2,748 people are currently being prosecuted in Russia for political or religious reasons, of whom 1,327 are in prison. Since 2012, the organization has recorded 4,328 victims of Russian repression.
Amnesty did not participate
The 16 political prisoners detained in Russia and Belarus released on August 1 in exchange for 8 Russians convicted in the West for various crimes, including murder and espionage, therefore represent a tiny proportion of the detainees languishing for ideological reasons in Russian prisons.
In this context, what makes a political prisoner stand out and end up on an exchange list? ? According to Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Russia office director, “they would be those who have received the most support from international organizations and whose cases have received the most media coverage.”
In the case of the prisoner exchange on August 1, no non-governmental organizations were involved in the negotiations, she says. “Amnesty was not involved, and I can say that no other NGOs were. “It was a negotiation between states,” she said after speaking in Berlin, when the political prisoners arrived, with her colleagues from other organisations.
Mixed feelings
On Memorial’s side, Natalia Morozova says the organization never asked for its co-president, Oleg Orlov, who was released on August 1, to be exchanged. “We advocated for his release and his case was widely publicized,” she says. The main person concerned, who had received a sentence of two years and eleven months in prison — less than that of other political prisoners — is said to have difficulty accepting having been exchanged.
“I saw him two days after his release. And the biggest question he kept repeating was: why me and not so-and-so who is sick or so-and-so who will not survive,” the lawyer reports.
Ilya Yashin, also released on August 1, is also said to have mixed feelings. This political opponent of Vladimir Putin recalled, in a press briefing, having mentioned several times that he did not want to be on an exchange list. “The Kremlin representatives willingly included my name, because for them, my exchange essentially means expulsion,” he said.
“It's very difficult for me emotionally, because I understand that I was released at the cost of releasing a murderer [Vadim Krassikov, a Russian security agent sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of a Chechen separatist].”
So the question arises: by agreeing to release real criminals in exchange for political prisoners, isn't the West encouraging Russia to continue filling its jails with innocents, who thus become bargaining chips? ?
The answer is far from simple. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the political prisoners who have been released “will be the leaders of tomorrow's free Russia,” emphasizes Dan Storyev. It is therefore in the West’s interest for them to be on the job to oppose Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime, he adds.
Three political prisoners currently imprisoned
– Alexei Gorinov, an opposition city councilor in Moscow, was sentenced to seven years in prison after declaring that the invasion of Ukraine was an aggression, a war, that was killing children every day.
– Vladimir Rumyantsev is a boiler technician who set up a portable radio station in his home to transmit uncensored information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
– Natalya Filonova, an activist and journalist from Siberia, was arrested during a peaceful protest against the conscription of Russian men to fight in Ukraine. She was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison.
Russian authorities allow political prisoners to receive letters of support from abroad. “They get them,” says Natalia Zviagina of Amnesty International, who encourages Canadians to take up writing. “The international support they receive is absolutely magical for them.”