For many people, if they had recently turned 70 and were faced with the prospect of a long stint in a Russian prison, their first instinct would be to dash to the airport and escape the country as quickly as possible. Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most experienced and respected human rights advocates, had that opportunity but never considered it an option.
Orlov, whose organisation, Memorial, won the Nobel peace prize in 2022, remained in the country after being accused of “discrediting the Russian army” for his commentary on the war in Ukraine. In February this year, he was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Earlier this month, Orlov was among 16 people freed from Russian jails in the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the west since the cold war, and in an interview with the Observer in Berlin, he explained his rationale for staying behind.
“Being in prison felt like a continuation of my work. When I was in prison I felt every day I was doing important work just by being there. It was important to show that I had not been broken; it’s very important to show what this regime is and who is willing to stand up to it,” said Orlov.
He initially decided to stay to continue his work on human rights abuses in Russia’s North Caucasus for as long as possible in person, he said. But a large part of the motivation also came from holding a longer-term perspective of how future generations might look back at this historical moment.
Orlov began his dissident activity in the late 1970s, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when opposing the authorities was also a lonely mission. Now, even if the resistance to Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine is weak and swiftly repressed, Orlov believes it is crucially important to demonstrate that it’s there.
“Was there resistance in Hitler’s Germany? Yes there was. Not very strong, but it was there,” he said. “And it was very important for future generations of Germans as a symbol.
“Or take the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when six people came on to Red Square. It was a very important symbolic act, and when it comes to resistance, symbolism is important.”
Orlov’s court case revolved around an opinion piece he wrote for French media in which he labelled Russia a fascist state. “The country that 30 years ago left communist totalitarianism behind is now falling back into totalitarianism, but this time a fascist one,” he wrote. He also criticised Russia’s war in Ukraine in stark terms and called on Europe to back Ukraine fully, saying he wanted to see a Ukrainian victory, as a Russian victory would cause danger to the whole of Europe.
In court, his “final word” before sentencing was a searing indictment of the Putin system and of the court itself.
“I am not entirely sure whether the creators and enforcers of Russia’s anti-legal, anti-constitutional laws will themselves be held accountable. But they will inevitably be punished. Their children or grandchildren will be ashamed to talk about where their fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers worked and what they did,” he told the court.
Orlov spent his months in prison responding to hundreds of letters that he received each week – from family, colleagues and also wellwishers he did not know personally. He said he had been treated relatively well during his months in prison, and some people might have had a sense that a person with Orlov’s profile – a long-term regime critic but with decades of brave and heartfelt activism behind him – might have enjoyed a degree of immunity from the witch-hunt for enemies which has intensified in Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Orlov said he had never laboured under such a naive thought, and always knew a prison term was a possibility.
“For the regime, any attempt to influence public opinion counts as politics … We see that there’s no difference for the regime – politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, artists, if you criticise the authorities in any way, they can call you a ‘foreign agent’. It’s a label that shows you’re an enemy.”
Speaking at the offices of a Berlin-based thinktank, he said he had still not quite grasped his dramatic change of scenery – from Russian prison inmate to free man in the space of a week. “Don’t ask me where I am – I have no idea. During the days, I talk on the phone to friends and family and give interviews, then in the evening I go to bed and pass out. Maybe in a few days I’ll be able to understand what my mood is like,” he said.
In the days since the prisoner exchange, many Ukrainians have reacted angrily to some of the statements by freed Russian opposition politicians such as Ilya Yashin, who called for a ceasefire in the conflict and appeared to be uneasy stating clearly that a Ukrainian victory in the war would be a positive outcome.
Orlov said he would not criticise or comment on the statements of other former political prisoners, but said he could understand the fact that Ukrainians were angry and dismissive of the Russian opposition.
Once again, he was more focused on the longer term: “For now, Ukrainians don’t give a damn what is happening inside Russia. Russia is the enemy. With Russia you have to fight – just as, probably, Soviet citizens during the second world war were not preoccupied with internal German processes: ‘They invaded us and we will fight them.’
“But for the future, to build some understanding between the peoples, it’s very important that inside Russia there was resistance, and that people did protest against the war, and that not everyone was silent.”
