Russian activists who were freed in the exchange of prisoners between Moscow and the West, called on the world not to equate the people of Russia with President Vladimir Putin and thanked everyone who helped bring about the happy ending, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
"There are many people in Russia who are against the war and do not believe the Kremlin's propaganda," said Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was arrested in 2022 and was serving a 25-year sentence, at a press conference in the German city of Bonn.
"It is wrong to make an association between the Russian people and the policies of the government," Andrey Pivovarov said for his part. According to him, the goal of the activists was to make Russia "free and democratic" country.
Realizing that in order for the prisoner exchange to take place, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had to make the difficult decision to release a Russian killer, Kara-Murza said: "It was not an easy decision for Germany.”. Pivovarov added that the lives of some of the prisoners held in Russia were saved in this way.
Kara-Murza said he was subjected to mental harassment in prison, where he spent more than two years. During all this time, he was allowed to speak to his wife only once, and to his children – twice. He was also denied the right to visit the prison chapel, despite being a Christian. Kara-Murza indicated that he spent 10 months in solitary confinement, which many times exceeded the term allowed by law.
Opposition activist Ilya Yashin told a press conference in Bonn that he had not consented to being deported from Russia in the prisoner exchange. According to him, what happened will encourage Putin for more "political prisoners". “What happened on the first of August is not an exchange. I was expelled from Russia against my will. "My first wish in Ankara was to buy a ticket and go back to Russia," Yashin said.
He said that before he left prison, an official from Russia's Federal Security Service approached him with the words “Your days will end like Navalny's if you return to Russia.
Germany's foreign ministry announced last night that a "double-digit number of people" with German citizenship are in prisons in Russia, and a "single-digit number of Germans" were held in Belarus, reported DPA, quoted by BTA.
The statement comes in the context of the largest exchange of political prisoners since the Cold War, which took place on Thursday between Moscow and the West.
The Russian authorities have refused for about two years to allow representatives of the German diplomatic mission to visit prisoners who have dual citizenship - Russian and German, the agency notes.
"They accept people with Russian citizenship who also have passports of another country, primarily citizens of Russia," the German Foreign Ministry said, adding that Berlin does not share this point of view and strives "in every possible way" to gain access to these own citizens. DPA states that among the German citizens released in the exchange were Rico K. (Krieger - note ed.), sentenced to death in Belarus, and four people held behind bars in Russia.