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Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin who was part of last week’s historic prisoner exchange has said the Ukrainian counter-incursion into Russia is a “terrible” direct result of Vladimir Putin’s war.
Moscow declared a state of emergency in two of its regions after Kyiv launched the largest cross-border attack since Russia’s president ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“From the first day of the war I have said that Putin will inevitably bring death and destruction to Russian territory too and our country will have to pay a high price for his bloody misadventure,” Yashin said this week in Berlin, where he is located after being transported with more than a dozen prisoners released from Russia.
Yashin was part of the biggest exchange of its kind since the cold war and included the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, as well as two German citizens.
The Russian dissident, who was sentenced in December 2022 to eight-and-a-half years in prison for his anti-war statements, said he was forced into the swap against his will. He believes his role as a politician meant remaining in Russia whatever the personal cost.
But now that he has been released, he told the Financial Times he hoped to continue influencing public opinion through his political work from abroad.
Yashin said he believed Ukraine must achieve its aim of forcing Russia to withdraw forces from its territory, and that a defeat for Putin on the battlefield would be a victory for Russia as a whole.
“As far as I know, Ukraine does not intend to annex any Russian territories. Ukraine is demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. I do not see that as a defeat for Russia. I see it as an absolutely justified and just demand,” Yashin said.
Ukrainian officials and military analysts have said the aim of the offensive in the Russian border regions of Kursk and Lipetsk was to divert Moscow’s troops from eastern Ukraine, rather than capture territory.
Opposing the war was the only “patriotic” option for Russian politicians, Yashin said, because the invasion was so detrimental for the country.
“The war is not just a tragedy for Ukraine, it’s also a catastrophe for Russia,” he said. “It’s a war that goes against the national interests of our country, that poses a danger to society, to economic stability, to the safety of our borders.”
Speaking to cellmates and guards in prison, Yashin found many agreed with his views.
“I tested this in practice,” he said. “I spoke to prison guards, to people who had fought in the war, to those who planned to go and fight. The argument that this war is harmful for Russia was very easy to make to all of them.”
Yashin called on western leaders to maintain their support of Ukraine, not just for its survival, but also for Russia to be able to have a democratic future.
“If you want to help the Russian opposition, you need to save Ukraine. Because if Putin destroys Ukraine as an independent state . . . it will lead to a strengthening of his position and a hardening of the regime inside Russia.
“It’s a question of life or death not only for Ukraine but also for a free Russia.”
He also called for more individual sanctions on those responsible for the war. “Currently, there are only around 2,000 people on those sanctions lists. That’s a drop in the ocean. There should be 20,000 people on that list,” Yashin said.
At the same time, he underscored that he viewed the majority of people living inside Russia as “hostages” of the regime.
Though the experience is not remotely comparable to the horrific trauma experienced by Ukrainian people, he said it was important to consider the Kremlin’s oppression of its people.
“What the state is doing to public opinion in Russia is the most real form of violence,” Yashin said, arguing that the regime’s propaganda has instilled deep within society.
“When change does come to Russia, the main thing Russian society will need is psychotherapy.”
