‘This war is a tragedy’: Ilya Yashin to keep campaigning after release from Russian jail

Now exiled in Germany, the opposition politician says he will focus on turning Russians against the war in Ukraine

The Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin, freed from jail last week as part of the biggest prisoner exchange since the cold war between Moscow and the west, has said turning Russians against the war in Ukraine will be his focus now he is at liberty.

“I want to explain to my co-citizens in Russia that this war is a tragedy not just for Ukraine but for Russia too,” Ilya Yashin told the Guardian in an interview in Berlin. “As long as [Vladimir] Putin feels support from the population, he will feel confident.”