Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza both said during the press conference that they refused to sign confessions or statements seeking a pardon during their detention. 

"I said, I am not going to be asked to be freed, to admit any guilt, I will not go to a person I consider a tyrant, a murderer, an enemy of his own country for a favor," Yashin said. 

"I didn't sign a condition for a pardon, but I was still pardoned. We never gave our consent [to be expelled from Russia], yet here we are," Kara-Muza said. He said he'd not signed the statement either, which "spoke of admitting guilt, ... of remorse." 

Kara-Murza also said that during his roughly two years in prison, he was allowed to speak to his wife just once and his children only twice.