Ildar Dadin was the first person ever imprisoned in Russia under a criminal statute introduced in 2014 that makes it a felony to attend multiple unpermitted demonstrations. The local press subsequently named the ordinance after him, calling it “the Dadin Statute.” He spent more than a year in prison before he was released following a Constitutional Court ruling that ultimately overturned his sentence but upheld the statute’s legality. Dadin moved to Ukraine in early 2023, and he’s now training to fight in the so-called “Siberian Battalion,” which former Russian intelligence officer Vladislav Ammosov hopes to lead into battle against his old compatriots. In a new interview with the news outlet Mediazona, Dadin explained how he traded a philosophy of nonviolence for belief in the necessity of resisting the Putin regime by force. Meduza summarizes Dadin’s comments.