“You have to understand that Russia is not Putin. Tens of millions of Russians are against this criminal war. Many have relatives in Ukraine, and they feel their pain. This is a dark moment of our history, but the darkest moment always comes before dawn.”
My friend Dmitry Ivanov said these words, in English, to foreign journalists who came to the Moscow court where his trial was being held.
I met Ivanov in a police van and shared a cell with him at the time of the 2021 Russian protests – a brief hopeful moment that was quickly crushed. As the editor of Mediazona, an independent media outlet focusing on the judicial system in Russia, I had been sentenced to 25 days in prison for retweeting a joke, while Ivanov had been arrested for taking part in the protests.
