Reuters reports — Gray, pale and thin, Valentin Danilov has changed more than the country that jailed him in 2004 for selling state secrets to China.
The 66-year-old Russian physicist, whose face is now criss-crossed with deep wrinkles, could not be blamed for suffering from "deja vu" when he was released on Saturday from a Siberian penal colony on spying charges he says were politically motivated.
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President Vladimir Putin, now 60, is back in the Kremlin for a third term, corruption is rife, the unreformed economy is creaking under the weight of its dependence on energy exports, and opponents are still being imprisoned.
Putting a positive spin on his years in jail, Danilov said: "They say that to get to know a country well, one must visit its cemeteries and prison. I used to visit cemeteries often and now I've been to prison too.
"So you can really believe me when I say I know perfectly fine now what Russia is," he said. Read the full story.