Mixed emotions as Pivovarov, Kara-Murza and Yashin describe their unexpected release from prison

In by far the most lengthy and frank account yet heard from any of the 16 political prisoners freed by Russia on Thursday as part of an international exchange, three of Russia’s best-known opposition politicians held a press conference in the German city of Bonn on Friday evening.

Addressing reporters for over an hour at the offices of German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Andrey Pivovarov and Ilya Yashin were at times emotional, humorous, angry and defiant as they took turns to describe their experiences of being deported from Russia at short notice.

Speaking first, Andrey Pivovarov, who led pro-democracy organisation Open Russia until his arrest in 2021 for his association with the platform, began by thanking “all those who worked so hard to ensure the exchange took place”, specifically German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before urging Western governments to “extend a hand” to Russian citizens, cautioning them not to wait for change but “to act”.

“My friends and I are putting all our energy into making our country free and democratic,” Pivovarov said.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, the opposition politician who spearheaded some of the toughest sanctions against Putin’s regime, and who had been serving a 25-year prison sentence for treason until his release on Thursday, described how “surreal” he had found the events of the past few days.

Describing the “bundles” of letters he received from all over the country while in prison, he stressed that there were many in Russia who opposed Putin’s war in Ukraine, and urged people not to believe Kremlin propaganda.

“People were not afraid to write openly that they were against the war. Don’t confuse Russia and Putin’s regime — don’t let yourself be convinced that this Kremlin lie has anything to do with reality," Kara-Murza said.

Kara-Murza said that both he and Ilya Yashin had categorically refused to write a letter to Vladimir Putin requesting clemency — a legal requirement to receive a presidential pardon in Russia — and went on to detail the total disregard for the constitution and Russian law the Kremlin had demonstrated in releasing the pair, stressing that “nobody asked for consent”.

Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician who was serving an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence for publicly condemning the atrocities carried out by Russian troops during their month-long occupation of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, struck a rather different note, and cautioned that the prisoner exchange meant that Putin’s regime would continue to kidnap innocent people for use as bargaining chips.

“Realising that you were released because a killer was released, is a very difficult thing,” Yashin told reporters, adding that he felt a great weight on his shoulders that so many other political prisoners “remain behind bars, including people who were supposed to be here instead of me”.

Stressing that from the very first day of his sentence he had requested that he not be included in any exchange being negotiated, Yashin expressed anger at what he called his “illegal expulsion” from his homeland.

“I refused to leave Russia under the threat of arrest, understanding myself as a Russian politician, a patriot. I understood my detention not only as an anti-war struggle, but also as a struggle for my right to live in my country, to engage in independent politics there.”

Saying that his first instinct upon arrival in Ankara on Thursday had been to immediately buy a ticket back to Russia, Yashin said that he was told in no uncertain terms that his return to Russia would definitively rule out the possibility of any prisoner exchanges in the future, and that one FSB agent had told him: "If you come back like Navalny, you’ll be arrested like Navalny and you’ll end up like Navalny.”