The head of Memorial, Russia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning rights group, has told AFP she fears a fresh crackdown after September’s legislative elections, with more people arrested and sent to fight in Ukraine. Speaking in an exclusive interview in Amsterdam, Elena Zhemkova also vowed to keep up the fight for human rights in Russia, despite her group being declared illegal and herself forced into exile.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “Unfortunately, I think that now everything is getting worse, but not so fast,” the 65-year-old said. “But after the elections, there will be a very sharp deterioration.” Last month, Russia’s Supreme Court banned the only anti-war party, Yabloko, from running in the elections, where opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin will be minimal. “More people will be arrested for insignificant things and sent to prison. They are interested in sending people to prison. For them, prison is a way to the front,” she said, referring to the main line of combat in Ukraine. “The situation at the front is very fragile.” Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document victims of Soviet-era political repression during which millions of people perished in the Gulag penal system. Earlier this year, a court labelled the group “extremist”, making its supporters subject to prosecution and effectively outlawing any cooperation with it.