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

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BERLIN: Oleg Orlov, a human rights activist since the 1980s, thought Russia had turned the tables when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president took over. But then Vladimir Putin came to power, cracked down on dissent and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Orlov, 71, was eventually jailed for his opposition to the war. Last week, he was released in the biggest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War and forced into exile, like many Soviet dissidents in his youth.

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