Veteran human rights advocate freed in swap says Russia is sliding back toward Stalinist times

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BERLIN: A human rights activist since the 1980s, Oleg Orlov believed Russia had turned a corner when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became its leader. But then Vladimir Putin took power, crushed dissent and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finally, the 71-year-old Orlov himself was thrown into prison for opposing the war. Freed last week in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, he was forced into exile – just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth.

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