A 70-year-old Russian activist was asked to sign a form saying he was willing to fight in Ukraine, rights group says

• Russian activist Oleg Orlov was asked to agree to fight in Ukraine, the rights group he founded said.
• Orlov, who is 70, declined the offer, according to the group.

A jailed Russian human rights activist, who is 70, was asked to sign a form saying he was willing to fight in Ukraine, a human rights organization said.

Oleg Orlov, the cofounder of Memorial, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, was arrested several times in 2022 after attending protests against the war in Ukraine.

He was sentenced last month to two-and-a-half years in prison for "discrediting the armed forces" by protesting the war.

But in a series of X posts, Memorial said that Orlov, upon arriving at a Moscow detention center, was asked to sign papers that enlisted him in Russia's war.

It is unclear when exactly this incident took place.

Signing up instead of serving time behind bars was being offered to all new detainees at the center, Memorial said.

Russia's military has recruited thousands of prisoners to join its war effort, which the UK's Ministry of Defence said was aimed at bolstering its troop count without resorting to new mandatory mobilization measures.

According to Memorial, upon hearing the request Orlov "laughingly asked" whether they were "embarrassed" by his age. He turns 71 this year.

Memorial said that Orlov was told there was nothing for them to be embarrassed about.

"Orlov, of course, didn't enlist and instead wrote: 'I do not agree,''" Memorial said.

The group noted that Russian authorities didn't seem to be fazed by the fact that Orlov was "imprisoned for opposing the war and his support for Ukraine in the first place."

During this trial, Orlov called the proceedings unjust and read aloud parts of Franz Kafka's "The Trial," which parodies the justice system through the fictional story of a man arrested on a charge he knows nothing about.

Reuters reported that the sentencing of Orlov was described by the head of the Nobel Prize committee, Joergen Watne Frydnes, as "politically motivated."