Moment 70-year-old anti-Putin activist is applauded by supporters while being led away to jail in handcuffs after praising Alexei Navalny in defiant speech in Russian courtroom

This is the moment one of Russia’s most prominent human rights activists was handcuffed and jailed for daring to criticize Vladimir Putin’s war.

Oleg Orlov, 70, won a share of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize after the Memorial group was banned and disbanded in Russia.

Today he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, the latest sign of the increasing repression imposed by dictator Putin and the Kremlin regime.

His lawyer Katerina Tertukhina briefly grabbed the back of his hand as the guards came to handcuff him and lead him to the glass court cage, where he raised his fist defiantly.

As he was led away from the courthouse, dozens of supporters applauded the leading campaigner.

He was sentenced to thirty months in prison as a result of the last signs of the top repression under dictator Putin

In his final speech in court, Orlov – one of Memorial’s leaders for 20 years – had criticized the “totalitarian” and “fascist” Russian state and warned officials that they could be the next to fall prey to the Putin’s tyranny.

The pensioner was escorted from the courtroom by at least eight armed security officials who hid their faces as he was sentenced to 30 months in Putin’s hellish prison system, where Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died this month in a suspected murder.

He was convicted for an article he wrote accusing Putin of leading Russia to fascism. This came in a new trial after he was previously fined due to his age and health.

In an emotional closing speech to the court, Orlov said: ‘I want to appeal to those who are now pushing forward the steamroller of repression with their work.

“To government officials, law enforcement, judges, prosecutors.

‘Actually, you understand everything very well, and not all of you are staunch supporters of political repression.

‘Sometimes you regret what you have to do, but you say to yourself, ‘What can I do? I just follow the instructions of my superiors: the law is the law.’

The human rights activist waited in court for the verdict – it took thirty months

Orlov said: ‘Isn’t it frightening to see how our country, which you may also love, is changing

He was led away from the courthouse as dozens of supporters applauded the leading campaigner

He turned to the judge and said: ‘I turn to you, Your Honor, I turn to the representative of the prosecutor: are you not afraid yourself?

‘Isn’t it frightening to see how our country, which you may also love, is changing?

‘Isn’t it frightening that not only you, but also your children and, God forbid, your grandchildren might have to live in this absurdity, in this dystopia?

“Doesn’t the obvious occur to me: the steamroller of repression may sooner or later roll over those who launched and pushed it, because this has happened more than once in history?”

He warned: “These are all links in the same chain: the death, or rather, the massacre of Alexei (Navalny), the judicial reprisals against other critics of the regime, including myself, the strangulation of freedom in the country, the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine.’

Orlov praised Navalny in his remarkable courtroom speech before he was sentenced.

“He was a wonderful person, courageous and honest, who, in circumstances made especially for him incredibly difficult, did not lose optimism and confidence in the future of our country,” he said.

“Whatever the specific circumstances of his death, this was a murder.”

Orlov praised Navalny in his remarkable courtroom speech before he was sentenced

He was greeted outside the courtroom by a crowd of journalists during the hearing

Orlov previously told The Guardian: ‘I decided a long time ago that I want to live and die in Russia, it is my country… Even though it has never been so bad.’

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, called Orlov’s trial “an orchestrated attempt to silence the voices of human rights defenders in Russia” and a “textbook example of a repressive system.”

Founded in 1989, Memorial has documented human rights abuses from the time of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to the present and has defended freedom of expression, with an emphasis on identifying and honoring individual victims.