Press Release, 1.08.2024

Photo: Footage from the airport in Ankara with planes from countries participating in the prisoner exchange / Photo: a screenshot of the broadcast of the Turkish TV channel NTV

The main event of today is the prisoner exchange between Russia, the USA, Germany, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Belarus. Those to whom we wrote letters to pre-trial detention centres and penal colonies, and about whom we worried all these months and recent years, are finally free. Among them are Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ilya Yashin, Oleg Orlov, Andrei Pivovarov, Liliya Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeyeva, Sasha Skochilenko, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Kevin Lik.

Yabloko leaders share their opinions on the exchange.

“Freedom for people who have not committed any crimes, those who have advocated for a better future for the country can only be welcomed. But in principle, there should be no political prisoners in Russia and they should all be released,” Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov says.

“It is important not to forget those who were left out of the framework of the deal. They are the absolute majority. Their suffering is the same as the suffering of those released. Their risks are no less, the pain of their relatives is no weaker than the pain of the relatives of those released. And these sad lists are growing,” Deputy Chairman of Yabloko Lev Shlosberg notes.

“We must not forget about them, those who remain in captivity. It is necessary to demand their release. The release of all political prisoners. The abolition of repressive laws and the end of political repression,” Deputy Chairman of Yabloko Boris Vishnevsky emphasises.

“The Russian government really needed Krasikov. For his sake, they were ready to release political prisoners, – and the number of political prisoners is larger today than during the times of Leonid Brezhnev’s period in the USSR, – realising that those released will continue their opposition activities and will be even more visible. But in order for the exchange to look equal, they asked to extradite additional prisoners to Russia,” Ivan Bolshakov, a member of the Yabloko Political Committee, said.

“I am happy for all the innocent political prisoners who will be released today. And I think about those who will not be released today <…> I also think that journalists and human rights activists, opposition figures and dissidents are going in one direction, while killers and hackers, spies and saboteurs are going in the other. Somewhere they value the first, and here in Russia they value the second,” Alexander Gnezdilov, a member of the Yabloko Political Committee, notes.

By the evening of 1 August, Vladimir Putin’s decree on pardons was published on the Kremlin website. It contains the names of 13 people. All of them are already outside of Russia.