When Ilya Yashin was sent to Moscow’s Lefortovo jail for condemning Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he knew life would be tough. Yet his months spent languishing in solitary confinement, locked in a bare “punishment cell” just two metres long, were bleaker than he could have imagined.
“It’s in the basement. Very humid, very cold,” says the Russian dissident. “They wake you up at 5am. They lift up the bed and lock it to the wall so you can’t lie down. All you have in this cell is a toilet and a sink.
“You are given a pen, paper and books for one and a half hours a day. The rest of the day, you just look at the wall. You gradually, very slowly, go insane. It can be compared to torture… Every day, you feel like your health is going, your eyesight is going.”
When his close friend Alexei Navalny was fatally poisoned in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024, Yashin wondered if the same fate awaited him.
He was surprised to be released through a prisoner exchange with the West a few months later. Two years on, lives are still being lost in the war he criticised – and he genuinely believes his country’s “psychopath” president may attack Nato.
“I’m not trying to offend him or humiliate him. I’m using ‘psychopath’ literally,” he adds, claiming that Putin destroys towns and cities for “entertainment”.
Yashin was placed on a wanted list again by Moscow shortly after his release. His parents, who remain in Russia, were interrogated last year and had their house searched. He knows he cannot return without certain arrest and potential death.
Instead, he has founded a new political party, Peaceful Russia. Its cat logo looks innocent but the group’s goal is bold: unite exiled dissidents so they are prepared to go back and assume control if Putin loses power.
If that does happen, it’s possible the man sitting with me in the The i Paper‘s London offices may become the country’s next leader.
The 43-year-old former Moscow city councillor – wearing a khaki linen shirt, a smartwatch and trendy glasses – could not be more different from Putin.
Yashin chats warmly in English, talking about how he’s visiting friends in the UK with his girlfriend, a Russian singer. But during the interview, he prefers to use an interpreter. He wants to be precise about his aims to create a democracy in his homeland after withdrawing from Ukraine, including Crimea.
Yashin concedes Putin’s regime probably won’t fall apart “tomorrow”. Russians are afraid of demonstrating against their president, especially after seeing what happened in Iran earlier this year, when protesters against that country’s dictatorship “were shot with machine guns and tens of thousands of bodies were lying on the streets”.
Nevertheless, he believes the conflict in Ukraine has been so disastrous for Russia – with nearly half a million deaths and more than a third of the government’s budget being spent on the military – that it’s causing a “slow rot” throughout the state, eroding Putin’s support.
Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian fuel and logistics facilities are having a real impact, he claims. “People are living in fear and frustration… Nobody can feel safe anymore. Just a couple of months ago, a drone exploded in a house next to where my cousin lives.”
Can he genuinely foresee a time when a country like the UK is also under attack from Russian drones and missiles if Putin is not ousted?
“It’s as realistic as what is happening now in Kyiv,” he states. “I remember pre-war Kyiv very well: a beautiful, brilliant, friendly city. It was impossible to imagine in 2022 that bombs would fall on kindergartens, hospitals and houses.”
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Yashin was 18 when he met Navalny in 2001. The pair worked together in the offices of opposition party Yobloko and bonded while arranging mass protests against Putin.
“From the first day I knew Navalny, I saw how strong his leadership qualities were,” says Yashin. “He was a very brave person who was not afraid to take responsibility. But at the same time, he was very kind.”
In 2011, the pair were arrested following a demonstration where they described Putin’s party as a group of “crooks and thieves”.
The two men were detained many more times over the next decade. “Putin felt danger emanating from Navalny at some kind of animal level, he really hated him,” says Yashin.
The Kremlin passed laws to crack down on public dissent even more harshly. Undeterred, Yashin posted a video online in April 2022 condemning the Russian massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha. He was put on trial for discrediting the armed forces, but told the court while wearing handcuffs that it was better to be jailed for honesty “than quietly burn with shame over the blood spilled by your government“.
He remains proud of that speech. “I felt an incredible force. I realised my words were very important. I never so powerful as then.” It didn’t stop the judge giving him eight and a half years, however.
Yashin was sent to Leforftovo jail, on the outskirts of Moscow, which has been used to interrogate and intimidate the Kremlin’s enemies since Josef Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. These days, it’s run by the FSB security agency.
He was thrown into a cell with three other convicts, two of whom had fought in the war. The Russian dissident learnt to get along with the men, even when they disagreed about what to watch on TV.
He found a way to smuggle out political statements, continuing to publicly share his outrage at Putin, which is what led to his solitary confinement.
He also shared letters with Navalny, comparing their prison experiences. Even now, Yashin cannot reveal their secret method of communicating, in case it prevents other political prisoners from doing the same. But that all came to an end with Navalny’s death, which international experts found was caused by a toxin found in poison dart frogs.
“It was a really heavy and horrible blow,” says Yashin. “I realised Putin was going to kill Navalny but until the last moment I hoped it wouldn’t happen.” He also knew “they could do the same to me”.
But when he was released through the exchange deal six months later, he was angry. The agreement allowed Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov, convicted of murder in Germany, to return home – with Yashin saying at the time that it was “unbearable” to be “exchanged for a killer“. He claimed he wanted to go back to jail.
The activist, who arrived at our offices without any security personnel, argues that if the Kremlin really wants him dead, no bodyguard can protect him from a Novichok attack, and he doesn’t want people “telling me where I can and cannot go”.
“I don’t remember a day when I felt safe,” he says. “I really don’t want to go insane and lose my mind because of that. The worst thing is to become paranoid like Putin, who stays in his bunker and is surrounded by security… I want to retain the feeling of inner freedom.”
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Yashin was elected chairman of Peaceful Russia this summer by 68 votes to 40. He hopes the party will unite liberals, environmentalists and moderate left-wingers among his compatriots living in exile across Europe, but the Russian opposition has been divided for years.
At a launch event in Moscow, party delegate Maxim Reznik told Euronews he worries the leader could become just another “self-centered Moscow political boss” and hopes he does not “turn into a mini-Putin“.
Jana Bakunina, a Russian author with British citizenship, trusts that he is a “nice guy” and a “credible” politician. But she says the population is skeptical of exiles, with one of her friends back home telling her Yashin talks “utter nonsense”.
Masha, a Russian LGBT activist in London, attended demonstrations calling for his release from jail and has “big respect” for him. However, she confesses to not understanding his party’s “end goal”. She still needs to be convinced he is a “uniting force”.
Yashin recognises the challenge ahead and says it’s “healthy” to work with people who disagree with him. He argues Reznik’s words “shouldn’t be taken too literally” and says it’s important the movement isn’t just about him. “We should have many politicians, many faces, many activists, so the murder of one wouldn’t change anything.”
Sergey Davidis, a campaigner with the Nobel-winning human rights group Memorial, welcomes this approach, saying that few Russian opposition leaders share power and he’s impressed at Peaceful Russia’s democratic ways of deciding policies.
Yashin claims he doesn’t covet Putin’s position. “I’m very well aware of what a heavy burden power is. I wouldn’t want it, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t have to take it on,” he says. “We may be better off electing leaders who are not that keen… I wouldn’t vote for a person who desperately wants power.”
Despite his party’s “peaceful” title, won’t the opposition require force to oust the government, given the new party cannot run in next month’s elections? Yashin argues that won’t be necessary, because “Putin is going to topple himself” as his war becomes more unpopular. “My task is be organisationally, politically, intellectually ready for this event… The opposition has to be ready to take power, because otherwise we’ll get another Putin.”
Asked what he would tell Andy Burnham or Donald Trump if he ever meets the leaders, he says: “Russian people are Putin’s hostages. They cannot get out of this state by themselves.” He adds the president will pose a threat to the continent as long as he remains in power.
But would Putin really attack Nato and risk a wider war? Yes, Yashin fears. “We underestimate a very important factor: he is a psychopath… Any sensible person wouldn’t even think about attacking Nato, but the psychopath’s view of the world is completely different.”
He adds: “This peaceful and calm life we are living is a privilege, because the world is sinking into chaos. If we don’t make certain efforts to protect our lifestyle and our values, the barbarians are going to try and take them away.”