71-year-old Vladimir Putin has now led Russia for twenty-four years. If he serves out the presidential time period he gained this 12 months, he will likely be in energy so long as Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Putin’s challengers usually meet premature ends; one, after an explosion on a aircraft and, Alexey Navalny, Putin’s main rival, who died in February in an Arctic jail camp. Putin has additionally killed practically all inside opposition to his unprovoked struggle in Ukraine. And but, many brave Russians proceed the battle outdoors the nation. As we first reported in March, we met a few of them in a metropolis that you simply would possibly consider because the capital of free Russia.
It’s 500 miles west of Moscow, town of Vilnius, in Lithuania the place there isn’t a love misplaced for Russia.
Lithuania is a democracy of about 3 million folks and a NATO ally. Vilnius, the capital, is clothed within the colours of Ukraine. The metropolis modified the Russian embassy’s tackle to “Heroes of Ukraine Street.” And Putin is reminded the worldwide court docket within the Hague is ready along with his arrest warrant. Since Putin’s 2022 invasion, Lithuania has welcomed greater than 2,500 Russian exiles.
Mantas Adomenas: It is our coverage to offer shelter to all freedom fighters.
Mantas Adomenas served as Lithuania’s deputy overseas minister from 2020 till final August.
Scott Pelley: I have not seen so many Ukrainian flags since I used to be in Kyiv. Why do your folks really feel so strongly about this?
Mantas Adomenas: Our freedom, our independence, our kind of safety is being defended within the battlefields in Ukraine. Ukrainians are dying in order that we could be secure.
Scott Pelley: There are many extra Russian dissidents who wish to come to Lithuania. Can you settle for any extra?
Mantas Adomenas: Yes, I believe we are able to settle for. Of course— we’ll accommodate as many as wanted and to offer them with chance to work for the liberty and democracy in Russia.
60 Minutes
One of the Russian exiles, in Lithuania, working for freedom and democracy is a crusading mother. Two years in the past, Anastasia Shevchenko fled Putin’s regime.
Anastasia Shevchenko: This is a terrorist regime. They are threatening different international locations with oil, fuel, nuclear weapon, and grain. They are threatening us with our youngsters, with our mother and father, with our lives, and so forth.
More than something, it was her daughter, Alina, severely disabled at delivery, that made Shevchenko an activist towards Putin. Back then, the household was in southern Russia and Alina was in a Russian authorities nursing house.
Scott Pelley: Alina couldn’t converse, couldn’t talk?
Anastasia Shevchenko: No. She was like a one-week baby, like a child. She was 17, however even, you already know, to feed her, it was a complete science, as a result of she wanted blended meals. You want to carry her in a particular place.
Shevchenko cared for Alina a lot of the time as a result of the Russian nursing facility was quick on workers and provides.
Anastasia Shevchenko: I used to be struggling to get treatment for my daughter, begging within the pharmacy that she wanted it. It was essential for her well being. They mentioned, “No, we simply haven’t got it, as a result of the ministry forgot to order it this month and you want to wait.” I made a decision, I’m not going to maintain silence. I’m going to face out and to talk out.
She spoke out by way of a Russian democracy group known as Open Russia. It was tolerated 10 years in the past and Shevchenko organized protests in her hometown. But in 2019, the Kremlin cracked down. Shevchenko was arrested and her lawyer warned her she can be shocked by what the police had already performed.
Anastasia Shevchenko: He confirmed me the screenshots of me– in my mattress. And I noticed that that they had put in the video digicam into the air con unit above my mattress. and so they have been watching me for six months in my bed room.
A Russian court docket ordered Shevchenko into home arrest. She could not go to or take care of Alina. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than her daughter developed pneumonia. By the time a decide granted Shevchenko a go to the hospital, Alina was unconscious.
Anastasia Shevchenko: I spent– possibly ten minutes, holding her hand, as a result of that is what I do when my youngsters are ailing. When you maintain their hand, they really feel higher. But this time, she was chilly. She did not really feel me. And she died in an hour.
60 Minutes
In 2021, Shevchenko was given a four-year suspended sentence. But when Putin invaded Ukraine, the following 12 months, she determined to flee Russia. From her southern metropolis, she took her two surviving youngsters on an 1,100 mile drive. A U.S.-based democracy group organized Lithuanian visas.
Scott Pelley: What does this inform us about Russia at present?
Anastasia Shevchenko: It’s sufficient to write down one thing on social media. Just one sentence, and you may be imprisoned for years. They are listening to your telephone calls. They’re watching you in your bed room. They are controlling you.
Breaking that management is why Sergei Davidis additionally left Russia for Lithuania in 2022.
Scott Pelley: You can be in a Russian jail only for doing this interview.
Sergei Davidis: Oh, for positive, for positive
In Moscow, Davidis helped lead certainly one of Russia’s largest human rights teams known as Memorial. It gained the Nobel Peace Prize two years in the past however now it is banned. He instructed us…
Sergei Davidis (translation): Almost every single day there are increasingly arrests. We hear information about new political arrests. And aside from the authorized facet of it, extra usually than earlier than, there’s violence and torture.
Davidis heads Memorial’s venture to help political prisoners. He instructed us he has confirmed 680 in jail at present however he believes the precise quantity is multiples of that. Since 2022, Russians could be sentenced to fifteen years only for criticizing the war– on the road or within the media.
Sergei Davidis (translation): One of the implications of the struggle was a whole wipe out of impartial mass media, a prohibition of any opinion that is not underneath management of the federal government.
60 Minutes
Independent newsrooms in Russia have been compelled to shut. Government-controlled newscasts report solely the absurd lie that the struggle is self-defense towards Nazis. This host says, “we’re on the facet of excellent towards the forces of absolute evil, embodied by the Ukrainian Nazi battalions.”
Tatyana Felgenhauer: People are scared. So they really feel lonely. They really feel terribly lonely.
Tatyana Felgenhauer and Aleksandr Plyuschev had been speak radio hosts on a distinguished Moscow station. They had been allowed to talk their minds till the day Putin launched his struggle.
Aleksandr Plyuschev: It was my morning present. I mentioned, “It’s half previous 6:00. Good morning. War started.”
“War started” and inside two weeks, their station was compelled to shut.
Now, Plyuschev and Felgenhauer are in Vilnius, streaming, each day, into Russia on YouTube. Putin silenced Facebook, “X” and Instagram however YouTube could also be too in style for the Kremlin to dam, thus far.
Tatyana Felgenhauer: This is the one probability to speak in regards to the struggle truthfully as a result of the propaganda tries to create this sense that you’re fully alone in case you are towards the struggle.
Scott Pelley: Why does this imply a lot to you?
Tatyana Felgenhauer: Really, I’d hate myself if I’m silent or pretending that the whole lot is OK.
60 Minutes
If Russian radio and TV stations are allowed solely Kremlin speaking factors…
…we noticed a Lithuanian station telling the reality, not on a channel, however on platform quantity 5—to a captive Russian viewers.
Because a part of Russia, Kaliningrad, on the left, is separate, like Alaska from the decrease 48, the Moscow-Kaliningrad practice should journey by way of Lithuania.
The automobiles are sealed for the transit however at a cease in Vilnius, Russian passengers had been confronted by posters of atrocities. Each learn, “Putin is killing civilians in Ukraine. Do you agree with this?” The gallery testified because the practice waited half an hour. There’s no method to understand how a lot reality climbed aboard. And nobody is allowed off the practice, partly, as a result of Lithuania worries about Russian brokers.
Scott Pelley: Putin is notorious for making an attempt to assault his enemies in overseas international locations. And I ponder if the Russian dissidents are secure right here in Lithuania.
Mantas Adomenas: Of course, it’s a main concern for us. And we spend considerable– effort in– in ensuring that– dissidents are secure right here and– safer than they’d be, the truth is, in– in lots of different international locations.
Scott Pelley: Have there been makes an attempt?
Mantas Adomenas: Well, I’m afraid I can not launch that data in additional element. But– let’s put it this way– that– that Russia is consistently probing and continuously making an attempt.
And this previous March, Russia could have gotten by way of. Leonid Volkov was attacked with a hammer outdoors Vilnius. Volkov, on the correct, was a prime aide to Putin’s late rival Alexey Navalny. Volkov’s arm was damaged. The attacker fled.
Vladimir Putin’s re-election this 12 months introduced him to his fifth time period, which can cowl the following six years. He enjoys help from nationalists who need to imagine that at present’s Russia is an distinctive nation. But Putin additionally has weaknesses. It’s estimated he is misplaced 300,000 troops killed and wounded and Russia has a inhabitants lower than half that of the United States and an economic system in regards to the dimension of Italy’s.
Anastasia Shevchenko: My hope is– a rustic the place a authorities takes care about residents.
Anastasia Shevchenko is free in Vilnius however she’s wished in Russia for breaking her probation. These days she’s streaming her personal YouTube present and sends drugs, meals and letters to political prisoners. She’s develop into one other voice to the remoted and the lonely and people, like her daughter, who won’t ever escape the brand new iron curtain.
Anastasia Shevchenko: She was alone, nobody subsequent to her. I actually really feel very responsible about it. But I would not change something in my life, I believe.
Scott Pelley: Why not?
Anastasia Shevchenko: You know, the society in Russia relies on fakes. We have pretend democracy, by structure it’s a democracy, pretend information, pretend elections And I need to be the alternative. I need to be open. I need Russia to be open.
Three males had been arrested in neighboring Poland for the assault on Leonid Volkov. The Polish prime minister known as it an tried assassination and mentioned the person who organized it labored for the Russians.
Produced by Henry Schuster. Associate producer, Sarah Turcotte. Broadcast affiliate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Michael Mongulla.
