A woman with ties to the Hudson Valley was part of the historic US-Russia prison swap last week that topped international news. Bard College graduate Alexandra “Sasha” Skochilenko was set free from a Russian prison and was one of 24 people released in a landmark multinational deal. Prisoners held in seven countries — Russia and Belarus on one side, and the U.S., Germany, Slovenia, Poland, and Norway on the other, were part of a prison swap that officials from nations around the globe took months to negotiate. Skochilenko, Bard College class of 2017, had been imprisoned since March 2022 for the act of placing anti-war leaflets, disguised as price tags, on goods in a grocery store in Saint Petersburg, Russia. “Sasha has demonstrated both the creativity and determination that we hope to see in our graduates,” said Jonathan Becker, Bard College’s Executive Vice President. “We are profoundly thankful that she is now out of prison, and only hope that others currently incarcerated in Russia for their courageous stand against the ongoing war are also released.” Under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, Skochilenko was sentenced to seven years in a Russian penal colony for “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian Army.” In her closing statement before sentencing in 2022, Skochilenko said, “If these five pieces of paper are really as dangerous as the state prosecutor claims, then why was this trial initiated at all? So that we could discuss and re-discuss these five theses dozens of times? Even the state prosecutor uttered them — and didn’t blush. …(W)hat weak faith our prosecutor has in our state and society if he believes that our statehood and public safety can collapse from five small pieces of paper?”
