For many years, veteran Russian human rights defender Oleg Orlov thought his country's darkest days were behind it. Not anymore. "I don't think I have ever seen a darker period," says Orlov, 68, who began a lifetime of activism in the early 1980s handing out leaflets against the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Nearly 40 years later, Russian troops are again fighting and dying abroad, Kremlin opponents are in jail, independent media have been shut down and thousands of Russians have decided to flee the country. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES