“The dictatorship will fall sooner or later.” The daughter of a Russian senator spoke out against the war and left the country

• Nina Nazarova, Amalia Zatari
• BBC Russian Service

“I AM AGAINST this war! NO WAR! It can be said that I did not choose this government, but I indulged it with my silence, inaction and fear for my life, although I knew about its cruelty and immorality. not only our people, but also the neighbors suffer for our power.”

Such a post was written on her Instagram by 25-year-old Diana Isakova, daughter of Federation Council member Eduard Isakov.

On August 18, in the afternoon, Diana Isakova recorded a story at the airport with a promise to talk about her experiences over the past five months. “I could not say what I think in our country,” she added. Early on the morning of August 19, she landed in a new country.

“On February 24, the war began. It’s very difficult to convey the emotions that I experienced. This is a terrible protest, and I had a very big explosion of empathy,” Isakova says in an interview with the BBC. “How can this be? A person kills a person, and this is Russia, I live in a country that does this. And I cried a lot for the first couple of days, the feeling was mourning, as if someone had died, that’s how some kind of relative dies. ”

The girl’s father, Eduard Isakov, is a senator from the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. It is on the sanctions lists of the UK, the European Union and Canada. Isakov now comes to meetings in the Federation Council in a jacket with a large Z. In July, Isakov visited the family of a Russian intelligence officer killed in Ukraine. “I am proud that such young guys are defending our country and fighting the Nazis,” he said at the time. (Read about the thesis “fascists are in power in Ukraine” in the BBC fact check).

In April, Isakov offered to send people opposed to the war in Ukraine to rebuild the Donbass. “They don’t have to pay fines, but with their own hands, with which they write vile posts on social networks, do something for their country. Let them clean the streets from garbage, paint fences. send them to the DPR and LPR to help rebuild cities and small towns,” he said.

Diana is the daughter of Isakov’s first marriage. She is a teacher of yoga, singing and meditation. As the BBC girl told the BBC, she had long been signed “for Navalny and Meduza” (recognized as a “foreign agent” in Russia), “but it was all in such a quiet mode.”

Isakova also says that in 2020, secretly from her father, she went to a rally in Sochi after Navalny was poisoned. “We always had kitchen discussions with our ex-husband on this topic. When Navalny was poisoned, they were very worried about whether he would survive,” she added.

Another disagreement with her father, the girl says, was related to LGBT rights: “It was such a moment when gays were killed in Chechnya, it hurt me very much, I tried to speak out, to express myself on this topic. And he could call me and say: ” delete [пост]and it was clear that if I did not delete, then goodbye.

Diana Isakova herself is bisexual, according to her Instagram and as she confirmed in a conversation with the BBC.

In March 2022, Diana Isakova went to an anti-war rally in Sochi – “Navalny also wrote that everyone should go out today,” but there were very few people there, and then the girl decided to come up with her own action.

On April 17, Isakova says, wearing inconspicuous clothes, a medical mask and gloves, she went to lay out anti-war leaflets of her own design.

According to the girl, she was quickly detained by people in civilian clothes. During a six-hour interrogation by the police, Isakova says, she refused to answer questions out of fear of her father: “My father’s terrible fear, such lack of separation. I put his feelings and needs above my own. condemnation, rejection, – explains Isakova. – Well, such a lack of separation, a childish position, when a child looks back at a parent, although he is already an adult. “

When the police figured out that they had detained the senator’s daughter, as Isakova says, they tried to manipulate her: “We won’t tell dad anything, let’s cooperate with us.” As the girl says, she ended up signing the protocol without reading it, but when she later asked her friends to check if any case had been initiated against her, they did not find anything. “I think it’s because of the Pope that this issue was hushed up,” she suggests.

The next day, according to the girl, she was summoned for interrogation by the FSB, and in the evening information about her action reached her father. “I found out that he not only found out, but an incredible number of officials called him, and in the end [председатель Совета Федерации Валентина] Matvienko told him about it.”

“I had crazy stress, all the lack of separation came out, I went to therapy to work out this fear,” says Diana Isakova.

Eduard Isakov told the BBC that after his daughter’s participation in an anti-war rally in April, he invited her to “visit places of military glory of the Soviet people” and “go to the Donbass as a volunteer.”

Valentina Matvienko, according to the senator, asked him to “talk to his daughter, explain to her the reasons and the need for a special operation.” “When Diana found out that Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko called me, she asked – who is it? This is Diana a politician! You interview such aspiring young politicians and make a sensation out of their words,” Isakov told the BBC.

“Everything I expected, he told me that I was an enemy of the family, an enemy of the people, a criminal. And that I was not his daughter, he said later. He came to tell me this,” says Diana about the reaction of her father-senator . When Isakov realized that his daughter was not going to repent and apologize, he demanded that she move out of the house.

Diana Isakova has lived in Sochi for the past five years in a house owned by her father. “Dad is always very modest […] participated in my life financially,” Isakova told the BBC. “But the fact that I lived there on his territory, yes.”

However, this was not always the case: as Diana Isakova says, in her youth she and her father had conflicts and severe depression as a result. On Instagram, the girl at some point mentioned that she had six suicide attempts.

“I was a broken girl, these are the consequences of a cruel upbringing, where my needs were not taken into account and basically everything revolved around the needs of my parents,” Isakova recalls in an interview with the BBC about one of these conflicts. “Somehow my dad called me, [когда я была] here in this broken state. Psychology in our country is still not very developed in the country, and 10 years ago no one heard about it at all. In Russia, we have such a boyish upbringing, everything that is connected with feelings, emotions is depreciated. And dad called me, once again devalued my feelings, emotions, needs. In general, I sent it to three letters, and we did not talk for two years. “

“Diana has no education, she finished school and did not want to study further. She did not work a day, she asked me for money for her maintenance. Diana constantly told everyone around that her dad was a senator in order to get some kind of preferences, that I tried to stop as much as possible. And with all this, she did everything contrary to me and my opinion, “Isakov complained to the BBC.

Then the father and daughter eventually reconciled: “Dad invited me to visit for a week, and I stayed for five years.” Diana constantly lived in her father’s house in Sochi, where Eduard Isakov, with his second wife and younger children, came on vacation.

On Instagram, the girl for 2019 has several joint photos with her father, including a heartfelt birthday greeting: “My dear, my only, my most beloved Dad.”

Isakov said that he cut off all ties with his daughter after he learned that she had an “anti-Russian position.” “We don’t communicate, I don’t provide for her, I don’t provide housing. I thought that I would go to work, start adulthood, think like an adult,” he told the BBC. “After all, if it were a daughter, not a politician, but a person of a different profession, no one would be interested in interviewing such a girl. And here is a sensation – the daughter of a senator! “

After the anti-war action in April 2022, Isakova says, “my father tried to make me look guilty, a traitor. And I needed a lot of inner energy, a lot of work on myself to tell myself that I am me. I did what I think is right “I spoke out against the killings. I sincerely, sincerely believe that this is immoral, wrong. In my world, I am an adequate person who dared to speak out and who sincerely believes in his ideas, in his intentions and sincerely believes in good.”

“I do not take any responsibility for his decision. Yes, I know that he signed this paper that allows the invasion, but I am not ashamed of him, I do not feel guilty. This is a separate adult who is responsible for his actions, – Diana Isakova answers the question about her father. – I’m worried, maybe what will happen to him next, because I am convinced that the dictatorship will fall sooner or later. Unfortunately, such arrogant people as my father, like our government, underestimate other people, they overestimate themselves.

They have the feeling that everything that is happening now is forever, that Putin is forever. I can judge from the history of mankind that the dictatorship will fall sooner or later, people will wake up, they will remember that they have a voice, they have a will. I will do my best to, so to speak, convey this to people. And what will happen, how will the power change? I sincerely believe 100% that it will change and become more democratic and adequate. People who supported the war and so on can become war criminals, can be put on trial. Experiences in this direction, probably.

In the summer, Isakova decided to leave Russia and speak out about her anti-war position as publicly as possible. She herself contacted the BBC and Meduza with an offer to give an interview. “This is also a stage of separation,” Isakova explains. “I have the right to this, I have the right to speak.”

The BBC Russian service agreed to meet with Diana and spend the day with her to talk in more detail. Watch our video material and read more detailed text about her in the near future.