By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A number of Russian dissidents and people convicted for their opposition to Moscow's war in Ukraine have disappeared from Russian prisons in recent days, in what rights activists say is a possible sign that a prisoner swap with the West may be close.
Although Russia does move prisoners to other incarceration facilities without informing their relatives and lawyers, the number of prisoners who have been moved elsewhere in recent days - at least seven - and the similarity of their profiles, is highly unusual.
Among those whose relatives and supporters say they are no longer in the same prison, but have, according to prison authorities, "departed" to another facility are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, prominent human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Danila Krinari, a man convicted of secretly cooperating with foreign governments.
Others to have gone missing include German-Russian citizen Kevin Lik who was convicted of treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko.
All of them are individuals that the Russian state has labelled, for different reasons, as dangerous extremists. In the West, they are seen by governments and activists as wrongly detained political prisoners.
"We all hope that these are good signs," Ivan Pavlov, a prominent human rights lawyer who fled Russia and is now based in Prague, told Reuters.
"We hope that they (the authorities) have probably taken them all out of their prisons to gather them together in one place in preparation for an exchange."
Pavlov, whom Russian authorities have designated "a foreign agent," said the prisoners were most likely to have been taken to Moscow's Lefortovo Prison.
President Vladimir Putin would then need to formally pardon them before they were put on a plane to a destination in Europe, which Pavlov said could be in Germany.
UNUSUALLY SWIFT CONVICTIONS
Under Russian law, the prison service does not comment on where prisoners are being moved to. Only the prisoners themselves can do so in writing once they have reached their destination or are able to.
The reported prison moves follow the unusually swift conviction on July 19 of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges he denies. He was handed 16 years in jail and Russia has already confirmed that talks about his possible exchange have taken place.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was also convicted in unusual haste in a secret trial on the same day and sentenced to 6-1/2 years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian army. She denies wrongdoing.
The Kremlin, when asked on Tuesday about the possibility of a prisoner exchange that would involve Gershkovich, declined to comment.
There are numerous other U.S. nationals behind bars in Russia, including Paul Whelan, a former marine convicted of spying, a charge he denied, and Marc Fogel, who was convicted on drugs charges.
In Belarus meanwhile, President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, on Tuesday pardoned Rico Krieger, a German citizen sentenced to death on terrorism charges, again with unusual haste and state media coverage.
Among those individuals Moscow has signalled it would like to get back in any exchange with the West is Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany for murder - an exchange that would require Berlin to get someone like Krieger in return.
The U.S. is also holding at least two Russian nationals, Vladimir Dunaev and Roman Seleznev, convicted on serious cybercrime charges who could figure in the swap.
"It appears that we are on the cusp of a very large-scale exchange with the Americans (and not just the Americans)," said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
"I believe the pressure factor in the exchange about to take place was timing," she wrote on her Telegram channel.
"(U.S. President Joe Biden needs to finish his term with dignity. Putin was also interested in a deal before the election, as after the election all the extremely complex painstaking preparatory work, involving several states, could be buried."
Pavlov, the rights lawyer, said the exchange would be carried out in an atmosphere of secrecy.
"The main thing is that they (the people detained in Russia) will get their freedom. They are hostages and political prisoners and the important thing is to get as many of them out as possible," he said.