Remember how the most famous Russian political prisoner (Alexey Navalny) vanished for multiple days last year? Of course afterwards he reemerged in the harshest prison north of the Arctic Circle to meet a gruesome demise there. This time not one, but at least six political prisoners have been disappeared without a trace inside the Russian penal system in a similar fashion — Ilya Yashin, Lilia Chanysheva, Sasha Skochylenko, Oleg Orlov, Ksenia Fadeyeva, and Kevin Lik. All of them were doing ridiculous amounts of time on trumped-up charges, for example, in Chanysheva’s case, nine and a half years for “organizing an extremist society” (www.bbc.com/...). The “extremist society” was, of course, Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation which had been legal at the time when Chanysheva was its local coordinator. For Yashin, an investigative journalist and a rising political star, the sentence was eight and a half years for “discrediting the Russian army.” Yesterday Yashin’s attorney requested information about the location of her client, all she got was “he left the penal colony to an unknown destination” (my translation from Yashin’s Telegram channel — https://t.me/yashin_russia/1035).
Kevin Lik’s mother has been trying to reach him since July 26, she received an email from the penal colony administration stating “this prisoner is not at our colony” (my translation, source — rtvi.com/…). Note that this source has been accused of being influenced by structures in Russia, but they don’t make stuff up from whole cloth, at least as far as I know.
Sasha Skochilenko’s family is trying to look for her in detention facilities around Moscow, including prison hospitals (she is in bad health) — but no luck so far (https://t.me/skochilenko_sud).
I could not find a photo of Oleg Orlov that would be 100% okay to reproduce here, but you can see one on the Radio Freedom site (www.svoboda.org/...). He is serving two and a half years for “discrediting the Russian Army.”
What’s going on? There is some speculation (www.newsweek.com/...) that these jailed critics of Putin may be a part of a prisoner exchange of some kind. A similar exchange had been rumored to be in the works for Navalny, but that didn’t exactly work out, so, unlike some of my friends, I am rather pessimistic about a good outcome.
This is one of the most recent photos of Lilia Chanysheva from her Telegram channel.
The night is dark and full of terrors.
Kevin Lik, a German citizen. At 19, he is not the youngest political prisoner in Russia, but he is the youngest doing time for “treason.”
Sasha Skochilenko, an artist from St. Petersburg, imprisoned for seven years for replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war leaflets.
Ksenia Fadeeva, animal charity activist and political volunteer, sentenced to nine years in prison.
