Russian Artist Whose Anti-War Protest Was Featured in FRONTLINE Documentary Is Released in Historic Prisoner Exchange

This week, a historic prisoner exchange with Russia made headlines with the release “Wall Street Journal” reporter Evan Gershkovich, Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

Among the 16 people released by Russia in the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War was Aleksandra “Sasha” Skochilenko, a Russian artist sentenced to seven years in prison for putting up stickers in a Russian grocery store criticizing the war with Ukraine.

Her story was featured in the 2022 documentary FRONTLINE. Putin’s War at Homewhich examined the Russian government’s repression of those protesting the war or independently reporting on its progress.

Skochilenko and her girlfriend, Sonya Subbotina, who campaigned for her release, were among the Russians caught up in the repression whose stories were featured in the documentary. The duo’s experiences were also described in Sasha and Sonya: A Russian Love Storya short film from the FRONTLINE Short Docs series.

“They use it to intimidate everyone, to show that nothing can stop them,” Subbotina told the show’s producer Vasily Kolotilov. Putin’s war at home, in November 2023 after Skochilenko’s conviction. “If someone thinks differently, if there is an objection, the verdict will be huge.”

After Skochilenko’s release, Subbotina thanked friends for their congratulations in a message posted on social media and said she was not accepting interview requests at the moment.

“I’ve barely slept since Sasha went missing in prison on Monday night. We didn’t know about the exchange until the last minute and spent three days searching for her in every prison in Moscow (and beyond). And we were terribly worried. Now I need some time to rest and recover,” the message read. “Sasha and I will be happy to talk to everyone later.”

How Putin’s War at Home Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly signed laws that cracked down on anti-war protests following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russian authorities arrested thousands of people who protested the war in its first month. During the crackdown, some protesters resorted to more subtle means of expressing their opposition. Skochilenko was one of them. She paid a high price for her actions.

“I remember well the day Sasha was arrested,” Subbotina said in the FRONTLINE documentary. “Sasha left five anti-war stickers in the store. The exact reason for her arrest was the price tag and information about the victims in Mariupol,” the Ukrainian city that was attacked by the Russians at the beginning of the war.

A still from the FRONTLINE documentary “Putin’s War at Home” showing an anti-war price sticker that was displayed in a Russian grocery store.

The translation of the sticker reads: “The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol. About 400 people were hiding there from the shelling.”

“The official version is that this did not happen,” Subbotina said in the document. “So it is considered a false statement against the Russian army and therefore a crime.”

Russian authorities identified Skochilenko using surveillance cameras. They followed her to an acquaintance’s house and she was imprisoned. In footage of her court appearances shown in the documentary, Skochilenko was shown in a cage. She was sentenced on November 16, 2023, after being found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian armed forces using stickers. She has denied knowingly spreading false information.

Subbotina told FRONTLINE after the verdict was announced in November that the duo has not lost hope.

“Sasha and I made a promise to each other that we would get through this,” Subbotina said. “We are sure that we will be rewarded for everything and that we will have a wonderful life when Sasha gets out of prison. We have a lot of plans for the future.”

The August 1 prisoner swap also included associates of the late Putin critic Alexei Navalny, journalists and human rights activists, and prominent opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza. FRONTLINE has featured Kara-Murza in numerous documentaries over the years. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Moscow in 2023 after publicly criticizing Putin and the ongoing crackdown in Russia on three occasions between October 2021 and March 2022.

In a wide-ranging interview in 2017, Kara-Murza told FRONTLINE about Vladimir Putin’s rise to fame, his being the target of two suspected poisonings, and the price he is paying for dissent in Russia.

“Over the past few years, we have seen a very high mortality rate among those who have had contact with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin — independent journalists, anti-corruption campaigners, opposition activists and opposition leaders,” he told FRONTLINE.

In exchange for the release of Kara-Murza, Skochilenko and 14 others, Western countries released eight Russian prisoners, including a Russian security service agent convicted of murder and a hacker who confessed to internet fraud.

You can read more about the story of Skochilenko and others who protested the Kremlin’s war efforts in the film Putin’s War at Home, directed and produced by: Gesbeen Mohammad, produced by: Vasily Kolotilov, AND Sasha and Sonya: A Russian Love Storyedited by Brad Manning and senior producer by Dan Edge.

Patrice Taddoni, Senior Digital Writer, LINE FIRST