The sentencing of Russian dissident Oleg Orlov, a leading figure in the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Memoria, is a new attempt by Vladimir Putin’s regime to silence critical voices in Russia, the Nobel Committee in Oslo said in a statement..

“For many years, Putin’s regime tried to silence the leaders of Memorial and other important civil society organizations in Russia and today he is using the war in Ukraine as a pretext to get the job done,” said the president of the Nobel Committee in Norway, Jürgen Vatne Friednes, in the announcement. “It’s important that he doesn’t.”

A Moscow court sentenced 70-year-old Oleg Orlov yesterday to two and a half years in prison for repeatedly condemning the Russian attack on Ukraine.

This conviction “It is politically motivated and is further evidence of the growing violation of human rights and freedom of expression in today’s Russia”the announcement states.

Oleg Orlov was convicted for demonstrating against the Russian attack on Ukraine and why he signed a vitriolic article against the Russian leadership published in the French Mediapart.

There he accused Russian military forces of mass murders of Ukrainian civilians and spoke of the victory of the darkest forces in Russia, the forces “that dreamed of total revenge” after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

Oleg Orlov, 70, was a top executive of the Memorial organization for two decadeswhich was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, a year after its operation was banned and dissolved by the Russian regime.

Addressing the court, Oleg Orlov denounced the “strangulation of freedom” in Russia, calling it a “dystopia”.

The Memorial organization was founded in 1989 to take care of the preservation of historical memory by recording the incidents of the violation of human rights from the time of Joseph Stalin until today, and for the defense of freedom of speech with special emphasis on highlighting each of the victims of the Soviet and Russian regime.