Putin’s crackdown continues as Russia locks up activist

A Moscow court sentenced rights activist Oleg Orlov to two-and-a-half years in prison for “discrediting the Russian armed forces” and “protesting against the war in Ukraine,” online Russian newspaper the Moscow Times reported Tuesday.

“I have committed no crime. I am being tried for a media article I wrote in which I called the political regime that’s been put in place in Russia totalitarian and fascist,” said Orlov, co-chair of the Russian human rights group Memorial, in a statement. “I wrote it over a year ago. At the time, some of my friends thought I was blowing things out of proportion.”

Orlov’s imprisonment is part of a broad crackdown by the Kremlin on rights activists and political opponents. Alexei Navalny, long seen as the most significant political opponent to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, died in prison earlier this month, prompting the West to impose sanctions on the Russian regime.

“Orlov’s trial was pure Kafka, so it is fitting that he chose to read the author’s iconic novel, The Trial, in protest during the court hearings,” said Tanya Lokshina, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is another grim day for Russia.”

Memorial was one of the first rights groups founded in the USSR in 1987. Though the organization was officially disbanded by the state in December 2021, its branch “Supporting Political Prisoners. Memorial” still keeps the only record of political prisoners in Russia.

Denis Leven contributed to this report.