Artyom Kamardin was arrested in September 2022 after reciting — in a Moscow square where dissidents have been gathering since the late 1950s — a poem strongly critical of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In December 2023, Kamardin was convicted of inciting hatred and undermining national security. Fellow poet Yegor Shtovba, 23, was sentenced to five and a half years for attending the public reading.

Kamardin, 34, lost his appeal last month and is expected to be sent to a penal colony soon to serve his term.

“I’m afraid they will kill him,” his wife Alexandra Popova, 30, who is still in Russia, told AFP during a visit to Paris. “He’s treated a bit like a Ukrainian. Like a Ukrainian captive.”

In a widely publicized case, both Kamardin and Popova were beaten and humiliated when security forces stormed their apartment the day after he read his poem, titled “Kill me, militiaman!” they also claim rights activists.

The reading came days after President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization, the first such call since World War II.

Kamardin’s 2015 poem is peppered with profanity and targets pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“Kill me, militiamen! You have already tasted the blood! You have seen how the brothers in arms dig mass graves for the people of the brothers,” Kamardin declaimed next to the statue of Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

– “Fascist dictatorship” –

In a statement from prison, Kamardin said the poem helped him reflect on “the transformation of my homeland into a fascist dictatorship”.

“I was born in a free Russia,” he wrote. “Now this country no longer exists, it has been killed and devoured by the monster that now calls itself Russia.”

During the raid, Kamardin was sexually abused with a dumbbell handle, according to Popova.

Members of the security forces used their phones to record the attack, she said. “There was a lot of blood,” Popova added. Kamardin was then told to go on his knees to record a video apology.

The men also threatened to gang rape Popova. “At one point they locked themselves in a room with me and pretended to start taking off their pants,” she said. The couple were also called Nazis.

Amnesty International said the details of his “arrest and torture are horrific even against the abysmal human rights standards in Russia today”.

Russian propaganda launched a campaign of harassment against the couple. “Hold on or they’ll kill you,” Kamardin was already told in prison, according to his wife.

Putin used the war, now in its third year, to radically transform Russian society.

Independent media outlets were shut down, leading rights groups were disbanded, anti-war critics were outlawed and dissidents were jailed, muzzled or pushed out of the country. Putin’s main opponent, Alexei Navalny, 47, died suddenly at an Arctic colony in February.

Popova, who is part of a six-member collective supporting Russian political prisoners, said the country had changed since the war began.

Many people now justify “killing other people”.

Even if Moscow’s war against Ukraine ends, repression in Russia may not stop, she said.

“Society has become cruel,” Popova added. “People learn about each other.”

The head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, said last month that there had been no crackdown in Russia, with only “minimal restrictions” against those he said were “essentially on the side” of the West.

– “The only chance to save people” –

Popova called on Western governments to do everything to help free Russian political prisoners.

She praised the release of 16 Russian dissidents and foreign nationals in a prisoner exchange on August 1 and said more such exchanges were needed.

“People are dying in Russian prisons,” she said, calling them “victims of war.”

“These are the people who oppose what is happening now and are paying for their position with their health and their lives.”

In July, Pavel Kushnir, a 39-year-old pianist and anti-war activist, died in detention in the town of Birobidzhan, near the China-Russia border.

In April, Alexander Demidenko, a 61-year-old volunteer who helped Ukrainian refugees, died in prison in the southern city of Belgorod.

“Artyom has a chance to get out early if there are exchanges of political prisoners,” Popova said.

“The only chance now to save people from Russian prisons is through exchanges.”

While many Kremlin critics have left Russia, Popova has said she has no plans to leave. She wanted to continue supporting political prisoners, especially her husband.

“My heart is bleeding,” she said. “I have to be near him.”

© 2024 AFP