A human rights activist since the 1980s, Oleg Orlov thought Russia had turned a corner when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became leader.
But then Vladimir Putin rose to power, crushing dissent and launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finally, the 71-year-old Orlov was himself thrown in prison for opposing the war. Freed last week in the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, he was forced into exile — just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday in Berlin, Orlov decried the scale and severity of repressions under Putin, with people imprisoned for merely criticizing the authorities, something unseen since the days of dictator Josef Stalin.
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https://apnews.com/article/russia-gershkovich-whelan-d803e266cb4e60135ec5d668d684529f
https://apnews.com/article/oleg-orlov-russia-prisoner-swap-putin-dissent-d6cb58cb5f29f6a4b3dd77f64b1bb2df
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-orlov-nobel-sentenced-8539517d8b2c846706607584ba5f9bbb
https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-crackdown-opposition-dissent-prison-532705369591610a94e9e86340233380
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