Highlights: Ilya Yashin was sentenced to eight and a half years of detention for telling the truth about the war in Ukraine. He tells RFI about his life behind bars and his relationship with his fellow inmates. He explains his vision of the war that he continues to denounce despite the risks. He shares his opinion on the future of Russia and his plans for the future, including a possible presidential election in 2018. He also shares his thoughts on the current state of the world and the role of the media.

From his cell in Moscow prison, Ilya Yashin, the opponent sentenced to eight and a half years of detention for telling the truth about the war in Ukraine, answers RFI's questions. He tells us...

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Russian opponent Ilya Yashin: "Putin drugged my country with imperialism and hatred"

From his cell in Moscow prison, Ilya Yashin, the opponent sentenced to eight and a half years of detention for telling the truth about the war in Ukraine, answers RFI's questions. He tells us about his life behind bars and his relationship with his fellow inmates. He explains his vision of the war that he continues to denounce despite the risks and he shares his opinion on the future of Russia.

Ilya Yashin, an opponent sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, when the verdict of his trial was announced in December 2022. © AFP/Yuri Kochetkov

Text by: Anya Stroganova

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RFI: How do you feel in prison?

Ilya Yashin: The prison remains the prison. Few people here feel good or enjoy life. But I feel pretty fit and I'm not complaining. I don't get sick, I take care of my health, I try not to let go and I keep myself in shape through regular workouts. I also don't feel depressed and try to protect myself from anxiety states. Depression is a chronic illness in prison. If an inmate begins to feel sorry for himself and loses his will, he risks turning into a robot that exists and functions only by inertia. More than once, I have seen prisoners sit with their eyes fixed on a point for days and simply lose the meaning of life.

Fortunately, my life has meaning, and that helps me a lot behind bars. I know that the truth is on my side and that many people support me. Knowing this motivates me to stay healthy, strengthens my willpower and gives me strength.

How to preserve yourself in prison? Have you found any tips that help you not lose courage and accept the reality around you?

I turn to the experience of Soviet dissidents and people who went through Nazi concentration camps. In their memoirs, they all advise more or less the same thing: devote yourself as much as possible to intellectual work, keep a sense of humor, visualize the future in your head...

My trick is pen and paper. I am constantly writing down my thoughts, responding to numerous letters from supporters and journalists, writing political and anti-war manifestos as well as my speeches for the courts. Moreover, almost from the first day of my arrest, I began to collect and record the personal stories of those I meet in prison. It is in a way a literary work, because in the fate of these prisoners drama, tragicomedy and police intrigues are intertwined. I am immersed in a gloomy atmosphere, but there is a vitality, a humanity and even a special beauty. I want to share this beauty and I want to explore this world. I even started making artistic sketches.

To put it simply, my trick is to try to perceive prison not as a deprivation of liberty, but as an anthropological experience, an immersion in a kind of parallel reality. As with Dante: "In the midst of the race of our lives, I lost the true way, and I strayed into a dark forest... ».

How often do you see your parents? What about your friends and supporters? Can they visit you?

I can see my parents and my lawyers. My lawyers regularly visit me in prison, give me news and support me morally. My mother and father can also visit me, but, unlike my lawyers, they need permission from the judge or investigator for every visit. Some political prisoners are often completely isolated from their relatives because they are denied these permits. Alexei Navalny, for example, has not seen his family for months. Vladimir Kara-Murza has not even been allowed to speak to his children for more than a year. It is a real torture. I am treated differently and my parents come to see me in prison about once a month. We communicate through muddy glass using phone handsets, but it still gives me a powerful load of positive emotions.

As for my friends and supporters, I only see them in the courts when they come to the hearings. But we can only exchange smiles. If someone tries to talk to me, the bailiffs immediately escort them out of the courtroom.

In your prison notes, you often talk about other prisoners. Who are they? Is it possible to identify a particular type of people who find themselves in such situations? Or, on the contrary, you realized that anyone can end up behind bars?

According to my observations, prison is, to some extent, a sample of Russian society. Of course, there are repeat offenders here for whom prison has become their natural habitat. This is a particular type of prisoners who have their own philosophy, concepts and a specific code of honor. In every society and in every country, there is probably such a caste for which crime and the loss of freedom it entails become a way of life.

But there are a number of people in Russian prisons who could never have imagined one day ending up behind bars. There are many entrepreneurs who become easy prey for law enforcement. They are deprived of their business, criminal cases of fraud or tax evasion are set up against them and thrown in jail. There are also many low-level officials accused of corruption but who, in reality, are blamed for the misconduct of their superiors. To my surprise, I also met with many senior officials from different security and defence administrations. Generals from the army, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Investigative Committee, high-ranking police officers and even FSB officers. It is clear that the Russian security services are undergoing an unofficial and probably severe purge. I guess this is due to Putin's annoyance at the failures at the front.

To answer your question, yes, anyone can end up in jail. The judicial system in our country is totally biased. It is almost impossible to use the law to defend oneself and not everyone is able to solve their problems informally with the police or the FSB. This has been ingrained in Russia for a long time. The saying "there is no escaping poverty or prison" is more relevant than ever.

What do other detainees say about Putin and the war? Are you able to talk openly about what's going on? Do you ever change the minds of those who support war?

I do not hesitate to express my opinion openly, even though I am aware of the risks. It's a matter of principle for me: I think it's important to defend my right to tell the truth, even in prison. Inmates listen with interest and often agree. There aren't many Putin fans in jail, because if you end up behind bars, you have, by definition, a conflicted relationship with the government and the state. My words therefore find fertile ground. Many people are aware that Russia is an inefficient and corrupt state, that the arbitrariness of the security services is dangerous and threatens everyone, and that the judicial system is caricatured and unjust.

Nevertheless, war evokes more complex feelings and emotions. Few people think it was worth starting. But for some, the logic is this: once you have engaged in a battle, you must at all costs fight it to victory and then worry about who was right or wrong. Regardless of their attitude towards the war, the majority of my interlocutors are worried and fear the possible mobilization of their relatives and friends, as well as the spread of large-scale fighting on Russian territory. The phrase I hear most often: "As long as it's over soon."

I also met people who were themselves involved in the fighting. One of my cellmates was an infantry sergeant who fought near Svatove in February 2023. He is now accused of illegal arms trade. He told me a lot of terrible details. I tried in turn to persuade him that this war was barbaric and criminal. Frankly, he didn't even really protest. He justified himself by saying that the army now offers the opportunity to earn more money than in civilian life. I hope my arguments have paid off. He ended up promising me that if he ever returned to the front, he would only be a driver and would never take up arms again.

The cells of pre-trial detention centres are equipped with televisions and radios. How does the constant presence of propaganda affect you and other detainees?

In Russia, in some prisons and penal colonies, prisoners are literally tortured by state propaganda. Navalny, for example, is forced to listen to Putin's speeches all day long in his cell. But this does not exist in my prison and inmates can freely choose their programs. Usually, they watch entertainment shows, football matches, or music videos. We also sometimes watch the news, but almost everyone is skeptical about it. From my observations, the detainees know what the propagandists are saying. Few people take their words at face value.

What is your relationship with prison guards and staff?

The attitude of the staff towards me is generally neutral. Of course, I see that some staff can be sadistic. Others assert themselves by exercising their power over prisoners. But so far, nothing abnormal has happened to me, except to have been searched almost naked for ten days straight. Rather, it was an initiative of the hierarchy and not of the supervisors themselves.

In almost a year of detention, I have heard more words of encouragement from prison officers than I could have imagined. Since prison is the foundation of any repressive system, I thought before my arrest that they all had the same opinion and that they fully supported the government. After passing through five different prisons, I met pro-opposition guards in each of them. It is necessary to talk to them and rally them to our cause. That is what I am trying to do.

At what point in your political career did you begin to prepare for the possibility of ending up behind bars?

In 2012, I miraculously avoided an arrest. It was the year of yet another Putin presidential election and, at the same time, the year of the biggest protests in Russia's modern history. I was one of the organizers of these rallies and marches; We demanded fair elections, democratic reforms and opposed the usurpation of power. Eventually, Putin lost his temper and, on the eve of his inauguration, ordered a brutal crackdown. A Kremlin spokesman later said police had to "smear protesters' livers on the asphalt." After this brutal crackdown, mass arrests began. The security services publicly referred to me as an "organizer of the mass riots." The interrogations and searches took place at my home, that of my parents and relatives. I was warned that if I didn't emigrate, I would end up behind bars. I was lucky and managed to avoid arrest.

However, after pressure from law enforcement 11 years ago, I understood that this would become the norm of our lives as long as Putin remained in power. Since then, I have understood that arrest for my opposition activity is a possibility and, most likely, only a matter of time.

After the outbreak of the war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, I realized that the hypothetical became inevitable. A week after the invasion, Putin signed several military censorship laws that criminalized all anti-war speech. The government's message to its critics was very simple and clear: either you shut up, leave the country, or go to jail. I am convinced that in this situation, a Russian politician and patriot can neither remain silent nor flee: he must stay and tell the truth about the war and say it as loudly as possible. My arrest was therefore inevitable.

Can the West facilitate the unification of Russian opposition forces?

I do not think that is the role of foreign countries. Democracy cannot be introduced from outside, that would only provoke the rejection of society. The opposition must learn to negotiate and cooperate without the help of the West. Russia must become a civil society, realizing for itself that it needs it and not because it is advised to do so from abroad. Democracy will only take root on our soil if it is a conscious choice of our people.

The West, in my opinion, should focus on helping Ukraine defend its security and sovereignty. And, above all, to help it implement post-war reforms. Ukraine must become a showcase for European democracy and freedom, a showcase for progress. It should be a positive example for all post-Soviet powers mired in autocracy.

What do you think of Russia's future in the short term?

I understand that Russia is going to go through a period of turmoil and that it will be very difficult for it to get out of its current state. It can be compared to a heavy hangover. Putin drugged my country with imperialism and hatred; The eyes of society are bloodshot. But Putin is not eternal and the country will eventually sober up. There will be great shame. We will have to apologize to the neighbors whose lives we ruined. We will have to make amends. We will have to endure humiliating looks and suspicions. The road ahead is painful and thorny. But we are not the first to follow this path: the Germans, after the Second World War, managed to build on the ruins of Hitler's regime a free society that is today an example of justice and humanism.

I don't know if it's the immediate future... In terms of history, I think it is not that far away. It will be up to my generation to revive Russia and bring it back to the community of civilized countries.

Russian opponent Ilya Yashin: "Putin drugged my country with imperialism and hatred"

Russian opponent Ilya Yashin: "Putin drugged my country with imperialism and hatred"

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