Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years by a Moscow court on Monday, the harshest sentence of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine, after being convicted of treason and other offences in a trial he said was politically-motivated.
Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years by a Moscow court on Monday, the harshest sentence of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine, after being convicted of treason and other offences in a trial he said was politically-motivated.
Mr. Kara-Murza should be designated by the United States as unlawfully or wrongfully detained, which will facilitate negotiating a prisoner exchange with Russia. Mr. Kara-Murza is a permanent resident of the United States, and his wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, and three children, are U.S. citizens. He clearly meets the requirements for such a designation, which Ms. Kara-Murza has been seeking for months. She told us Mr. Kara-Murza would accept an exchange, and recalled that dissidents were sometimes swapped during the Cold War.
However, his deteriorating condition is real. He was the target of attempted poisoning in 2015 and 2017 by Russia’s secret services, using some kind of nerve agent, and now suffers from polyneuropathy, caused by damage to the peripheral nerves throughout the body. The numbness began on his left side and is spreading to his right, with loss of feeling in both feet and his left hand.
According to one of his lawyers, Vadim Prokhorov, this malady should preclude being incarcerated in a Russian prison, but so far the wardens have turned a deaf ear to his appeals. “I do realize that he doesn’t have five years, let alone 25” in prison, Ms. Kara-Murza told us. “Now it is a question of life and death.”
“If we lose him, if we lose people like Vladimir, who is going to be there to rebuild the country from ruins, to make sure that Russia does not return to an authoritarian or totalitarian regime after the collapse of this one?” Ms. Kara-Murza said. “Vladimir kept on despite two poisoning attacks. Vladimir kept on despite the assassination of his friend,”
Boris Nemtsov, the reformist former deputy prime minister, “and that did not scare him. He went back to continue his fight time and again, and I believe that he has shown he would not give up the fight for a free Russia. The free democratic community has a responsibility to stand with people like this.”