Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has declined to comment on growing rumours that a large-scale exchange of political prisoners is being prepared, following the unexpected transfer of seven well-known incarcerated Kremlin critics in the past two days, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.
“We won’t be making a comment on that topic," Peskov said when asked if the Kremlin would be releasing a statement on the matter.
On Monday and Tuesday, at least seven political prisoners were unexpectedly transferred from the penal colonies they were imprisoned, including opposition politician llya Yashin, Memorial head Oleg Orlov, Navalny associates Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and activist Sasha Skochilenko.
Eva Merkacheva, a member of Russia’s Human Rights Council, suggested that a group exchange could be the reason for their transfer. "Could this be a group exchange? Anything is possible. This has never happened in the history of modern Russia, but in the Soviet era, yes," she wrote on Telegram.
It emerged on Tuesday that the whereabouts of jailed Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin were unknown. His official Telegram channel announced that his lawyer Tatyana Solomina had been informed of Yashin’s transfer from the penal colony where he had been serving his sentence to an unknown location.
It emerged on Tuesday that the whereabouts of 19-year-old Kevin Lik, one of Russia’s youngest political prisoners, were also unknown. German-born Lik was sentenced to four years behind bars for treason in late December.
Daniil Krinari became the seventh political prisoner to disappear from prison in the last two days. His support group said on Tuesday that he had been moved from custody in Moscow to an unknown destination.
Krinari, an artist from St. Petersburg, was arrested in the Belarusian city of Hrodna in December 2022 and extradited to Russia where he faced charges of “secret cooperation with foreign states”. He was sentenced to five years in prison in April.
The news comes a day after it emerged that four other Russian political prisoners, Liliya Chanysheva, Sasha Skochilenko, Ksenia Fadeyeva and Oleg Orlov, had been moved to unknown locations without prior notice.
Since being sentenced to an eight-and-a-half year prison term in late 2022 for speaking out about the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha in March of the same year, Yashin has been repeatedly sent to a “punishment cell”, a separate facility inside a prison with far harsher conditions, which is often equated with solitary confinement. He had been serving his sentence at the IK-3 penal colony in western Russia’s Smolensk region.
One of Russia’s most high-profile opposition politicians, Yashin was recently awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Paris along with Memorial chair OIeg Orlov. In May, Yashin condemned the Russian authorities for sending him to a punishment cell three days before a scheduled prison visit by his parents was due to take place.