Kremlin critic: Ilya Yashin: “I know what Russian agents look like”

Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin refuses police protection in Germany despite the potential dangers posed by the Russian secret service. When he arrived after the unprecedented prisoner exchange between Russia and the West around a month ago, he was offered personal protection, he told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group. He “absolutely does not want that”. “I didn’t even have bodyguards in Moscow, so why should I have any here?”

However, while visiting a café in Berlin with a friend, he experienced a “strange incident,” Jashin reports. A man at the next table suddenly pulled out his cell phone and started filming him. “This man was not a normal café visitor, but was spying on us,” he said. “I now know very well what Russian agents or police officers look like.”

Yashin: Putin would not be satisfied with Ukraine

When asked about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which has been going on for more than two and a half years, Yashin said: “There must be no illusion that Putin would be satisfied with Ukraine.” Rather, both the West and the Russian opposition should do everything they can “to save Ukraine.” In Russia, the prominent Kremlin critic was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2022 for openly addressing the atrocities committed by Russians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

At the same time, Yashin complained that the space for critical opinions in Russia is becoming increasingly narrow. Most people are afraid to stand up against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime. “Putin has taken my people hostage,” he said.

In an unprecedented prisoner exchange at the beginning of August, Russia and Belarus released Yashin and 15 other people who had been imprisoned for their activities as journalists, artists, opposition members or activists, among other things. In return, ten people were handed over to Moscow, including the convicted “Tiergarten murderer” Vadim Krassikov and spies.