Shortly after Russia shocked the world by attacking Ukraine on February 24, Ilya V. Yashin, a local Moscow councilor and well-known opposition figure, decided it was time to see a dentist. doctor.
The Kremlin is in the process of criminalizing criticism of the war, and Mr. Yashin, a very vocal critic, has decided to stay in his homeland and continue to oppose President Vladimir V. Putin. In the end, he reasoned, there’s a good chance he’ll end up in jail.
“I was really scared of dentists,” Mr. Yashin said. in a recent interview on YouTube, “but I know myself well and did it because I realized that if I ended up in jail, there wouldn’t be any dentists there”.
Two weeks after the interview was published, Mr. Yashin, 39, was actually arrested. He is currently in pre-trial detention in Moscow, on charges of “disseminating false information” about the war. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
Yashin’s arrest highlights rapidly narrowing avenues for disagreements within Russia as Putin dismisses any deviation from the official narrative of the invasion. In addition, it has rekindled debate among the Russian opposition about how leading figures like Mr Yashin can best serve the cause of undermining Mr Putin: outside of the country they want to reform. way, or inside a penal colony?
Mr. Yashin still believes he made the right choice. “What crime have I committed?” he asked flamboyantly in a handwritten letter from prison to the New York Times. “On my YouTube channel, I criticized the special military operation in Ukraine and openly called what was happening a war.”
But some opposition figures disagree, saying that staying and fighting seems courageous, but prison is an ineffective platform to push for reform.
“Yashin is not afraid – he is a fighter, he is brave,” said Dmitri G. Gudkov, a Russian opposition leader who left Russia last year. “I’m sure he won’t back down,” he continued. “But I’m just sad that he’s going to waste his life. It cannot be understood. “
Mr Gudkov went into exile after what he described as “credible threats” that a criminal case against him would result in a jail term. He said he encouraged Mr. Yashin, a longtime friend, to also go into exile.
Our Report on the Russo-Ukrainian War
Yevgenia M. Albats, a journalist and friend of Mr. Yashin, who also decided to stayhave the opposite view, arguing that it is impossible to seriously participate in politics from abroad.
“You cannot be a Russian politician in New York, in Manhattan,” Ms. Albats said in a phone interview from Moscow. “YYou cannot call yourself a Russian politician and be in London. However, she admits, “The risks are very high and they are getting higher and higher. “
Mr. Yashin made the same admission in a YouTube interview posted shortly before his arrest, with Russian journalist Yuri Dud. “I understand that every day could be my last as a free man,” he said.
He later wrote on social media that he believes it was his apparent refusal, expressed in that interview, that led to his arrest.
In a letter to The Times, scanned and sent last week, Yashin wrote that “Russian prisons are quickly filling up with political prisoners” because Putin feels threatened.
“These harsh repressions,” Yashin wrote, “indirectly confirm that the current military operation is without legitimacy.”
Mr. Yashin knew his outspokenness and background would make him a target, and friends agreed that his detention was only a matter of time. He was repeatedly fined for “discrediting” the Russian military – mainly for talking about other wars. In April, he shared a Photograph of women who opposed the Vietnam War in 1969, said that the hypocrisy behind the war’s rationale, embodied in the slogan “bombing for peace,” persists to this day.
He was also fined in May for condemning Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan by Andrei Sakharovthe first Russian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the famous words of a Soviet soldier who sounded the alarm about the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
After the invasion began in February, he continued to call on Putin’s government, regularly hosting live streams on his YouTube channel to criticize the strength of security services in Russia. He also chronicles a visit to the penal colony featuring Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei A. Navalnyand references a BBC report on Russian atrocities in Bucha, which accuses him of spreading disinformation.
The only options open to opposition politicians from Russia today are “migration or prison,” said Lyubov Sobol, who was forced to emigrate after her boss, Mr Navalny, said. survived an attempted poisoningreturned to Russia and was immediately arrested On the advice of Mr. Navalny, Mr. Yashin went to see the dentist.
Mr. Navalny remains influential in prison. The large team he had assembled before his arrest was reconstructed abroad. Observers argue that maintaining such a public record from prison requires an apparatus as large as Mr. Navalny’s; Mr. Yashin has so far been able to leak messages that are then posted on social media.
Ms. Sobol, a lawyer, said she could not criticize a colleague while he was in prison. But she says no one in Russia can fill in Mr. Yashin, on YouTube or in politics.
She talks about Mr. Yashin, who has 1.3 million subscribers. “I know many people who sent his videos to their grandparents. And they changed their mind about Russian propaganda, because he spoke very simply, clearly and in good language. ”
“No one else” in Russia can do that right now, she said.
Mr. Yashin became active in politics at the age of 17, shortly after Mr. Putin came to power, and quickly rose to the top of the youth group of Moscow’s libertarian Yabloko party. When Yabloko reprinted the Russian translation of George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Yashin wrote the introduction, warning that the “era of Big Brother” had begun in Russia.
He eventually became close with opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in Moscow in 2015 by alleged assassins. affiliated with Ramzan Kadyrovpowerful man who had led the Russian region of Chechnya since 2007. Around the time of his murder, Mr. Nemtsov was composing a report on the involvement of Russian troops in the war that began in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Mr. Yashin completed and released the reportand become one of the few politicians ready to publicly criticize Chechen leader.
In 2017, Mr Yashin and opposition candidates won seven out of 10 seats in the local council in Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district.
As council head, Mr. Yashin addressed residents’ concerns: playgrounds, parking, renovations. He replaced his official car and driver as a free taxi for the district’s disabled. On YouTube, he regularly gives reports on the board’s achievements and challenges. He called for the corruption of government agencies and subcontractors.
Facing constant scrutiny from the prosecutor’s office, Mr. Yashin resigned as head of the panel in 2021, said Yelena Kotenochkina, who took over leadership of the panel.
Prosecutors “constantly checked what we were doing,” she said. Mr. Yashin’s replacement of his official car prompted an investigation into abuse of power.
In March, another board member, Aleksei A. Gorinov, suggested that the school district not hold a children’s event commemorating the Soviet victory in World War II while children were dying in Ukraine. Mrs. Kotenochkina agreed. At the end of April, both were charged under the “misinformation” law. Ms. Kotenochkina had fled to Lithuania; Mr. Gorinov was convicted seven years in a penal colony.
Ms Kotenochkina said the case against her and Mr Gorinov was a “suggestion” to Mr Yashin that he should leave the country or face prison.
And late one June evening, Mr. Yashin was detained as he walked in the park with a friend, independent journalist Irina Babloyan. He was charged with disobeying police orders – a bogus charge, Ms. Babloyan insisted – and sentenced to 15 days in prison. Shortly after his release, he was again arrested on charges of false information, and is currently awaiting trial. Last week, Russian authorities labeled him a “foreign agent,” government label equivalent to enemy of state.
“Now everyone sees: We are not running away, we are standing firm and sharing the fate of our country,” he wrote.
“This makes our words more valuable and our arguments stronger. But most importantly, it left us with a chance to take back our homeland. After all, the winner is not the one who is stronger now, but the one who is ready to go to the end.”
Alina Lobzina contribution report.
