Released as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and the West, the opposition figures had mixed feelings about the deal. They said they worry it could “encourage” Russian President Putin to take more hostages.
Andrei Pivovarov, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin entered DW’s conference room in Bonn on Friday and started speaking with little fanfare.
The three Russian opposition figures, who a day earlier were still serving sentences in Russia, were among those freed in the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War.
They arrived in Germany less than 24 hours before, and the media conference was their first chance to speak about their experiences in Russian prison and their shock at being released.
“This feels really surreal, this feels like a film, I was certain I was going to die in [President Vladimir] Putin’s prison,” Kara-Murza said, adding that a week ago he was in Siberia, yesterday was at Lefortovo prison and “we’re here now on the wonderful Rhine River.”
I will not ask a tyrant for a favor
Yashin said it was hard to accept that he was free “because a murderer was free” — a reference to Vadim Krasikov, a Russian spy convicted of killing a former Chechen militant in Berlin in 2019, who was released as part of the deal.
Yashin and Kara-Murza both said they refused to sign confessions or statements seeking a pardon during their detention.
“I said, I am not going to be asked to be freed, to admit any guilt, I will not go to a person I consider a tyrant, a murderer, an enemy of his own country for a favor,” Yashin said.
“I didn’t sign a condition for a pardon, but I was still pardoned. We never gave our consent [to be expelled from Russia], yet here we are,” Kara-Muza said, adding he also never signed any document admitting guilt or remorse.
Hundreds of people still in prison in Russia
Yashin said he was taken out of Russia against his will and wanted to stay in the country but agreed with the swap out of concern that the exchange would be canceled.
Yashin had been imprisoned for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine and was serving an eight-and-a-half-year sentence in Moscow.
Looking distressed at times while speaking, Yashin vowed to “continue political activity; we understand our responsibility.”
“I don’t know how to do Russian politics outside of Russia, but I will try to learn,” he said.
