Two Russian ex-prisoners from East-West swap want to return home

BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Two of the Russian dissidents who were freed from prison and arrived in Germany as part of last week’s major East-West prisoner swap say they are already thinking about returning to Russia, but vow to continue political activism even from abroad.

The swap saw eight Russians, including a convicted murderer, returned home from Western countries in exchange for 16 prisoners freed from Russian and Belarusian jails, many of them Russian dissidents alongside Americans like Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

“As people who were actually deported, who were kicked out of the country, we all have a great desire to return,” dissident Andrei Pivovarov told Reuters in an interview in Bonn on Saturday.

“I definitely want to be in Russia. I am a Russian politician and that is very important to me,” Pivovarov said. “It is clear that they (the Russian authorities) will not allow us to return, although we want to.”

Ilya Yashin, an opposition activist imprisoned in 2022 for criticizing President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, also expressed his desire to return home.

“I am truly pained by my expulsion from Russia, despite all the gratitude I feel towards those who wished me well and saved me,” Yashin told Reuters. “But I sincerely say that my place is in Russia… I have dedicated my life to my country.”

Yashin said he was happy to see his family and friends for the first time in a long time. But on the other hand, he said it was “a hard pill to swallow.”

“It’s very difficult for me emotionally because I understand that I was set free at the price of setting free an assassin, a person who actually committed a bloody crime,” Yashin said.

This referred to Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of the 2019 murder of a former Chechen militant in Berlin, who was among those freed.

“I said it a number of times that I did not want to be part of any exchange lists,” Yashin said. “The Kremlin representatives gladly included my name because for them my exchange essentially means expulsion,” he added.

He said he planned to continue with what he called the anti-war education of Russians, and helping Russian political prisoners.

Pivovarov also said he wanted to continue with his opposition activities from outside of Russia.

“Coordinating anything from inside is impossible,” Pivovarov said. “I’m not planning to step aside,” he added.

(Reporting by Polina Nikolskaya and Erol Dogrudogan; Writing by Maria Martinez; Editing by Frances Kerry)