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

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BERLIN: A human rights activist in the 1980s, Oleg Orlov believed that Russia had turned a corner when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became the leader. But then Vladimir Putin came to power, crushing dissent and launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Eventually, 71-year-old Orlov was thrown into prison himself for opposing the war. Released last week in the largest 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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