This week’s historic prisoner swap with Russia made headlines for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
But also among the 16 people freed by Russia as part of the largest such prisoner swap since the Cold War was Aleksandra “Sasha” Skochilenko, a Russian artist sentenced to seven years in prison after posting stickers in a Russian grocery store critical of the country’s war on Ukraine.
Her story was featured in FRONTLINE’s 2022 documentary Putin’s War at Home, which examined the Russian government’s crackdown on those who protest the war or independently report on it.
Skochilenko and her girlfriend, Sonia Subbotina, who was advocating for her release, were among the Russians caught in the crackdown whose stories unfolded in the documentary. The duo’s experience was also chronicled in Sasha & Sonia: A Russian Love Story, a short film from the FRONTLINE Short Docs series.
“They’re using her to intimidate everyone, to show that nothing can stop them,” Subbotina told Vasiliy Kolotilov, a producer of Putin’s War at Home, in November 2023 after Skochilenko was sentenced. “If someone thinks different, if there’s dissent, the sentence will be enormous.”
In the wake of Skochilenko’s release, Subbotina in a message released on social media thanked friends for their congratulatory messages, and said that she was declining requests to be interviewed for the time being.
“Since Sasha went missing from jail on Monday night, I almost haven’t slept. Until the very last moment, we knew nothing about the exchange, and spent three days looking for her in all jails in Moscow (and beyond). And we were terribly worried. Now I need a moment to rest a little and recover,” the message said. “Sasha and I will be happy to talk to everyone a bit later.”
As Putin’s War at Home reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed laws that cracked down on anti-war protests following Russia’s full-scale February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russian authorities arrested thousands of people who protested against the war during its first month. Amid the crackdown, some protesters resorted to subtler ways of expressing their opposition. Skochilenko was one of them. She would pay a steep price for her actions.
“I remember well the day when Sasha was arrested,” Subbotina told FRONTLINE in the documentary. “Sasha left five anti-war stickers in a shop. The precise reason for her arrest was the price label with information about the victims in Mariupol,” the Ukrainian city that came under Russian assault early in the war.
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