The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Our interviewee Vanessa Kogan speaks Russian so well it is hard to believe you are talking to an American born and raised in the United States. Indeed, Vanessa and her family have lived and worked in Russia for the past 11 years. She worked well. She and her colleagues worked to defend human rights in Russia, including in the Caucasus, and there is no doubt that such work, as often happens now, has become problematic for the Russian authorities. In December 2020, Vanessa Kogan was told to leave Russia within two weeks. As is now customary, the authorities kept the reason for this decision a closely guarded secret: Pack your suitcase. Then the secret was uncovered, saying that the human rights activist "poses a threat to the security of the Russian Federation.' But Vanessa, who has done so much to protect the rights of our compatriots, sought to protect her own rights as well: the right to family life and the right to freedom of association and expression. The ECtHR set a deadline of 25 March 2021 for a peaceful resolution of the situation. We know that the system does not know how to backtrack, but nevertheless we note that in this case the Lubyanka was forced to give Vanessa and her family time to get ready to leave. Vanessa Kogan and her family left the Russian Federation, the largest in the world and one where human rights defenders are a threat to its security. Vanessa's grandfather, after whom she received her middle name, Stessel, was a U.S. ambassador to the USSR. Walter Stessel helped reduce tensions between our two countries, he participated in a meeting between Leonid Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger. During his years in the Soviet Union, the U.S. Consulate in Leningrad was opened, and large-scale grain exports to the USSR began at the same time. And Vanessa's contribution to a noble cause has also been significant: over the years she and her colleagues have provided legal assistance to thousands of people in Russia seeking justice and an end to human rights abuses such as abductions and enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and gender-based violence. With the help of Vanessa and her colleagues, our fellow citizens have won more than 250 cases at the ECtHR. In the podcast, Vanessa Kogan tells Simon and me what it has all been like, and what will come next.

Simon