2024-08-06 14:23:53
Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who was part of Thursday’s prisoner exchange between Moscow and the West, said today in Bonn, Germany, that he will never accept the role of an emigrant and his goal is to return to Russia. He spoke at the press conference together with other released critics of the Russian regime, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Andrei Pivovarov. Kara-Murza stated that no one asked him if he wanted to leave.
“I did not give my consent to be sent outside Russia,” Yashin told reporters in Bonn, according to Reuters. “I don’t see what happened on August 1 as an exchange. I see it as my expulsion from Russia, against my will. And I honestly say, now more than anything else, I wish to return home,” Yashin said. According to him, however, they indicated to him that his return to his homeland would prevent another exchange and other political prisoners would lose their chance to be freed. The opposition leader also said he refused to sign a pardon request addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin
Kara-Murza also said, according to the Russian BBC service, that he did not sign the pardon request. And he indicated that he would like to return to his homeland. An opposition official noted that the Russian constitution prohibits the expulsion of Russian citizens without their consent. “No one asked for our consent,” he said, noting that he was taken out of the country without a passport, only with a national document. The Kremlin announced Thursday that Putin had signed decrees pardoning the prisoners who took part in the exchange.
At the same time, all three Russian politicians thanked the people who participated in the exchange. Pivovarov said she gave hope to other political prisoners. Both Jašin and Kara-Murza went on to say that they are aware of the difficult decision the German government and Chancellor Olaf Scholz made when they released a convicted murderer as part of the exchange. “We will continue political activity. I don’t know how to do Russian politics outside of Russia, but I will try to learn,” Yashin declared.
Thursday’s exchange is described as the largest between Moscow and the West since the end of the Cold War. It included 26 people. Ten people arrived in Russia, including Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer in Germany and an officer of the Russian FSB secret service. There were eight adults and two children in the group. From Russia, Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmaševová headed to the USA and 13 people to Germany. Among them, in addition to Yashin, Kara-Murza and Pivovarov, there was also human rights defender Oleg Orlov and other critics of the Russian regime or its war in Ukraine.
Kara-Murza used to be the coordinator of the opposition movement Open Russia, which was founded by the former richest Russian and later a prisoner of the Putin regime, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was also a close associate of the murdered opposition leader Boris Němcov. He survived two poisonings in 2015 and 2017. The investigative project Bellingcat previously reported that the politician was poisoned twice by agents of Russia’s FSB secret service. A Russian court sentenced him to 25 years in prison last year for alleged treason and spreading false news about the Russian army.
Yashin was active in Moscow municipal politics and until his arrest was one of the last opposition politicians who remained in Russia and openly criticized the Russian military incursion into Ukraine. A court sentenced him to 8.5 years in prison in 2022 for what Russian authorities call spreading false information about the Russian military.
Pivovarov used to be the director of the Open Russia movement, security forces detained him on board a plane in 2021 when he wanted to travel from St. Petersburg to Warsaw. In 2022, the court sent him to prison for four years. According to the court, he was guilty of managing an organization that was declared undesirable in Russia