When freedom means exile: Inside the Russian prisoner swap

The circumstances in jail had been harsh. Like Navalny earlier than his dying, one of many prisoners, Vladimir Kara-Murza — convicted to 25 years for treason for his democracy activism overseas — was denied meals and sleep and forbidden from mendacity down from early morning till night. 

He was solely allowed pen and paper for 90 minutes a day, leaving oceans of time to stare on the partitions of his 2-by 3-meter cell. In jail, he misplaced 25 kilos. 

Others had been submitted to much less onerous regimes. But, in an echo of the Soviet gulag system, most described isolation as a core a part of their punishment. Lilia Chanysheva, a former Deloitte marketing consultant, developed sores from being compelled to labor in a stitching manufacturing unit. Sent to jail for her hyperlink with Navalny, she didn’t see her husband for a whole yr. 

Ilya Yashin, a distinguished opposition politician, noticed his dad and mom solely twice. Andrei Pivovarov, one other political activist, was for a very long time saved separate from different prisoners. Under fixed surveillance, jail guards jumped on minor infractions to punish him additional. “The system sees us as harmful,” he advised POLITICO. “We are remoted in order that we will’t affect anyone.” 

The solely data got here from his attorneys and letters, many from folks he’d by no means met earlier than, which, regardless of passing via the jail censors, provided a glimpse of life outdoors the partitions. At one level towards the top of his sentence, Pivovarov was allowed to look at state TV, the place “black is white and white is black,” he stated.

He stated he’d attempt to preserve his spirits up by doing sophisticated psychological math equations across the variety of days of his sentence: 1,191. “You get up in a foul temper, however then calculate that, for instance, you’ve accomplished 83 % of your time, which helps enhance your spirits.”