Pervy Otdel (First Department), an organization specializing in defending people in Russian cases of treason and espionage, said that this theft could simply mean that a prisoner exchange had taken place at the Polish border.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked about reports of an imminent primary prisoner exchange, said: “I don’t comment on this yet. “Paul Whelan, a former U. S. Marine, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian-British dissident, both imprisoned in Russia, suddenly disappeared, their lawyers said the day before, after at least seven Russian dissidents were transferred from their prisons. in recent days.
Russian media also reported, without confirmation, that the dissident, opposition leader Vadim Ostanin, has been expelled from his prison in Siberia.
At least six special Russian government planes have flown in recent days to and from spaces where there are prisons housing dissidents, the Russian website “Agenstvo” reported. Separately, the lawyer for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian detained in the United States, on Wednesday refused to verify the whereabouts of his consumer to the official RIA news agency “until the exchange takes place. “But lawyer Arkady Bukh, quoted by RIA, said lawyers representing other people imprisoned in Russia had told him they were “on their way” to unknown places.
RIA also reported that four Russians imprisoned in the United States had disappeared from a prisoner database maintained through the US Federal Bureau of Prisons. He called them Vinnik, Maxim Marchenko, Vadim Konoshchenok and Vladislav Klyushin. The United States also holds at least two other Russian nationals, Vladimir Dunaev and Roman Seleznev, convicted of serious cybercrimes, who could be included on this list.
There have been no comments from Western countries. These exchanges are kept secret until they take place. Among the dissidents in Russia whose supporters say they have been suddenly displaced in recent days are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Daniil Krinari. , who has been convicted of covert cooperation with foreign governments.
Other people who have suddenly disappeared from the criminal formula are Russian-German citizen Kevin Lik, convicted of treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and pacifist artist Sasha Skochilenko. Ivan Pavlov, a prominent Russian human rights lawyer now living in Prague and founder of Pervy Otdel, said the disappearance of so many others with similar profiles indicated that the government was bringing them together, probably in Moscow, for an exchange.
He said President Vladimir Putin would forgive them before exchanging, a mandatory formality. The media outlet “Important Stories” drew attention to the fact that Putin, according to a government website, had signed a series of secret decrees on July 30 that he said could simply amount to pardons for criminals. In December 2022, Russia exchanged basketball star Brittney Griner, sentenced to nine years in prison for having vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage, for arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence. United States The largest exchange of criminals since the Cold War took place in 2010, involving 14 other people in total.
(With agency input)
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