Bonn, Germany: Two Russian dissidents, recently freed from prison and arrived in Germany as part of last week’s major East-West prisoner swap, have expressed their desire to return to Russia. Despite their exile, they vow to continue their political activism from abroad.
The swap involved eight Russians, including a convicted murderer, being sent back from Western countries in exchange for 16 prisoners freed from Russian and Belarusian jails. Among the released were several Russian dissidents and Americans, such as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
“As people who were actually deported, who were kicked out of the country, we all have a great desire to return,” dissident Andrei Pivovarov told Reuters in an interview in Bonn on Saturday. “I definitely want to be in Russia. I am a Russian politician, and that is very important to me,” Pivovarov emphasized. “It is clear that they (the Russian authorities) will not allow us to return, although we want to.”
Ilya Yashin, an opposition activist imprisoned in 2022 for criticizing President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, also expressed his longing to go back home. “I am truly pained by my expulsion from Russia, despite all the gratitude I feel towards those who wished me well and saved me,” Yashin told Reuters. “But I sincerely say that my place is in Russia … I have dedicated my life to my country.”
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Yashin shared his mixed emotions about seeing his family and friends for the first time in a long while. “It’s very difficult for me emotionally because I understand that I was set free at the price of setting free an assassin, a person who actually committed a bloody crime,” Yashin said, referring to Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of the 2019 murder of a former Chechen militant in Berlin, who was among those freed.
“I said it a number of times that I did not want to be part of any exchange lists,” Yashin noted. “The Kremlin representatives gladly included my name because for them my exchange essentially means expulsion,” he added.
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Yashin plans to continue with what he calls the anti-war education of Russians and helping Russian political prisoners. Pivovarov also intends to persist with his opposition activities from outside Russia. “Coordinating anything from inside is impossible,” Pivovarov remarked. “I’m not planning to step aside,” he added.
