One month after the biggest exchange between Moscow and the West, “postcards” to remember the hundreds of political prisoners

Letters, to support and resist. Every last Thursday of the month, a few dozen Muscovites gather in the heart of Moscow, in a room at the headquarters of Yabloko – the liberal party inherited from the 1990s, still alive –, writing postcards to political prisoners. On the tables, among the photographs and names of the recipients behind bars, some faces of famous prisoners stand out.

But, more than two and a half years after the start of the“special operation” From the Kremlin in Ukraine, most of the Russians arrested for their opposition to the military offensive and the regime of President Vladimir Putin are anonymous citizens. “More than seven hundred! Caught up in the crushing machine of our justice system. We must not forget them.”insists Anna Shatounovskaya, organizer of these evenings “postcards”.

the 1st^Ahem In August, Russia and the West exchanged twenty-six of their nationals (twenty-four adults and two children), the largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War. Against an agent convicted of murder in Germany and a pair of spies arrested in Slovenia, the West obtained the release of the Americans, including Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for Wall Street Journal in Moscow, but also several Russian opposition figures such as politicians Vladimir Kara-Mourza and Ilia Iachine, human rights activist Oleg Orlov, activists Lilia Tchanycheva and Ksenia Fadeïeva, and artist Alexandra Skotchilenko. These names and faces have long been on the tables of Yabloko. Every Thursday evening, ordinary Muscovites came to write them postcards.

One month after the exchange, the ritual continues. “Some have been released. But there are all the others… It is impossible to remain inactive, like most Russians! This is our way of supporting our opponents and, in the face of the Kremlin, of resisting.”breathes Olga, one of the volunteers gathered on Thursday, August 29. As For others, he prefers to remain anonymous. A precaution in the face of increasing repression against any critical voice.

“It feels good to be back in this room. We don’t feel alone.”“That evening, from students to babushkas, there were about fifty people who were methodically writing and signing these cards. On Thursday, they even exceeded the threshold of one hundred participants. On one occasion, pro-Kremlin provocateurs appeared, prompting police intervention.

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