The Russian soul behind bars

He never would have suspected that this video would lead him to the hell of Russian prisons. Arseny Turbin, 14, with a still childish face, shows signs to his phone camera: “It’s Russia Against Putin Day,” “Freedom for Political Prisoners.” In today’s Russia, this cry from the heart of a teenager – outraged at seeing his country dragged into war manu militari – is considered terrorism. Despite his young age, Arseny has been serving a five-year prison sentence since 2024 which exposes him to violence from other prisoners and endangers his health.

There are more than 4,600 of them to be imprisoned for opposing the invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin’s unique thinking. In the four corners of Russia, young and old, men and women, from all social backgrounds, took the risk of clearly expressing what thousands of Russians are thinking. They pay the price. The documentary Politzek, the voices that challenge the Kremlin, by Manon Loizeau and Ekaterina Mamontova, recently broadcast by France Télévisions, accompanies several of these destinies in their path of the cross which, from ordinary citizens, transformed them into outcasts of Russian society. When the time of liberation finally comes for some, they find themselves forced into exile.

The opposite of patriotic galvanizations relayed by the official speech, these barely audible voices say something of the aspiration for freedom, so dear to Russians. The repressive machine has only one goal: to silence them, to make them disappear. The NGO Memorial, banned in Russia, works on the contrary to remember their existence. She offers, through their website, to write to them. According to the prisoners, these letters arrive in their cells like rays of sunshine, constituting proof that their fight is not in vain. Peace and fraternity are not empty words when young people like Arseny commit their lives to embody them. Buried under the icy snowdrifts of totalitarianism, the eternal Russian soul endures in these dissident figures.