A leading figure in the defense of human rights, the 70-year-old dissident was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at the end of February for publicly denouncing the offensive in Ukraine.
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Oleg Orlov has no intention of joining a war he denounces. The Russian dissident, who was recently imprisoned for denouncing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, says he refused an offer from the army to be deployed there. “This type of agreement [pour aller en Ukraine] is offered to all new prisoners”, reports the NGO Memorial, for which the 70-year-old man worked, in a press release.
Russia offers military contracts to detainees in exchange for early release if they survive the fighting. According to independent media, tens of thousands of them have been sent to the front lines since 2022, often for the deadliest missions on the front lines.
A leading figure in the defense of human rights, Oleg Orlov was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at the end of February for publicly denouncing the offensive in Ukraine. According to the NGO Memorial, he was transferred on March 11 to pre-trial detention center No. 5 in the northwest of Moscow, where he was made this offer “almost immediately.”
“Oleg Petrovitch asked with a laugh if his age didn’t bother him. (…) He was told that nothing bothered him”specifies the NGO, adding that the dissident had “Of course” refused this proposal. Veteran of Memorial, dissolved by Russian justice at the end of 2021, Oleg Orlov had chosen, unlike many other critics of the Kremlin, to stay in Russia to “continue the fight”.
