“Just as the Vatican is a state within a state, solitary confinement is a prison within a prison,” Yelena said.“You do the math, what are the chances of being the one to get through to a doctor? Practically zero,” she said.For a foreigner with little or no Russian, it's harder to navigate the system and deal with the isolation.
David Whelan said his brother must work at least eight hours a day, six days a week, on menial tasks like making buttonholes, which has caused him repetitive strain injury. Paul seems to use his military training “to get through just day to day, to figure out what battles to fight and which battles not to fight”, David Whelan said.
Alyokhina said receiving cards and letters from the outside world offered a rare ray of hope, and she urged people to support Griner that way.