“I’m absolutely sure I’m going to die in Putin’s prison.”
That was pretty much the first thing Vladimir Kara-Murza told me after he was unexpectedly released from prison in the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War.
The Russian opposition politician said he had become painfully thin due to stress. He was also shaken by his sudden transfer from a high-security prison in Siberia to forced exile after more than two years in prison.
“It was surreal, like I was watching a movie,” he said of the feeling. “But it’s a good movie,” he said, finally reunited with his family whom he had not seen since his arrest in Moscow in April 2022.
His youngest son followed him and would not let him out of his sight.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, also a British citizen, was found guilty of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison for his strong and sustained condemnation of Vladimir Putin and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
For the past 11 months, he has been in solitary confinement, required to put up his bed at 05:00 every morning, and given only paper and pen for about an hour each day.
“You lose your mind easily. You lose your sense of time, your sense of space. Everything is real,” he revealed in his first lengthy interview after the release. “You do nothing, you don’t talk to anyone, you don’t go anywhere. Day after day.
He was denied phone calls home and was only allowed to speak to his children twice in more than two years.
Additional punishments are more severe and include physical punishment.
Nearly a decade ago, Vladimir Kara-Murza nearly died from an unknown toxin and still suffers from the aftereffects, including neurological damage. He has now revealed that in September a prison doctor gave him “up to a year and 18 months” to live if he remained behind bars.
“After two FSB poisonings, my health is no longer suitable for life in a strict regime prison,” he explained with a wry smile.
Karamurza was one of eight Russian dissidents who disappeared from prison last week.
Rumors of an impending exchange began to circulate as lawyers and relatives sounded the alarm. The prisoners themselves didn’t know.
Instead, he recalled, when guards burst into Kara-Murza’s cell in Omsk, he thought he would be “taken out and shot.” “I actually thought they were going to execute me.”
He was recently instructed to sign a presidential pardon request but refused to beg for mercy from Vladimir Putin, whom he denounced as a “dictator, usurper and murderer”.
Kara-Murza was transferred to Moscow and the notorious Lefortovo FSB prison. Five days later, he was taken out onto a bus and saw other dissidents inside, each accompanied by an FSB guard wearing a balaclava.
Another guard then took the bus microphone and announced they were being taken for a prisoner exchange, without revealing any details.
“No one asked for our permission,” Kara-Murza said. “We were loaded onto the plane like cattle and flown away.”
The activist arrived in Germany wearing the only civilian clothes he owned: black trousers and a T-shirt, as well as the flip-flops he wore in the prison showers.
The Russian dissidents were part of a “batch” of political prisoners released, along with prominent American citizens such as journalist Evan Gershkovich.
Three of them were former activists in opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s team who died suddenly in prison earlier this year. Initially, Navalny will be part of a complex exchange.
In return for dissent, Russia got a number of spies and criminals, including the key prize sought by Vladimir Putin: a man named Vadim Krasikov FSB killer, who murdered him in broad daylight in a Berlin park.
The judge who sentenced him to life in prison called the killing an act of “state terrorism”.
“To all those who criticize this [swap]”I would respectfully urge them not to think about exchanging prisoners, but to think about saving lives,” Kara-Murza said in response to the controversy over Krasikov’s release.
The killer was welcomed home with a red carpet and a hug from Putin himself.
“Isn’t 16 lives worth freeing a murderer?”
For a long time, Germany was unsure. Karamurza believes the delay could have cost Alexei Navalny his life.
The joy of the Kara-Murza family’s reunion is marred by thoughts of Russian detainees who have not been released.
“I was very happy and overwhelmed to see these people freed, but also very sad that so many people were left behind,” his wife, Yevgenia, told me. “I feel guilty.”
The human rights group Memorial has a list of hundreds of political prisoners and she has been working to secure priority groups.
“Some people have serious health problems, like Alexei Gorinov, who lost part of his lung, and they don’t have much time.”
Her husband spoke of those “still suffering in Putin’s Gulag” and of the hope for further exchanges.
He had only been free for five minutes when he was mired in controversy.
Vladimir Kara-Murza said in a statement shortly after arriving in Germany that sanctions related to the war in Ukraine should be more targeted.
There was an immediate uproar among Ukrainians, who claimed his first priority in walking free was to reduce Russia’s punishment for starting the war.
Kara-Murza calls it calibration.
“I need more information,” he admitted. “I realize a lot has changed in February 2022.”
But he wanted to know why Russian human rights lawyers could not travel to the Baltic states for a conference, while a Russian missile packed with Western-made chips could hit a house in Ukraine.
He believes: “Russian society shares responsibility for what the Putin regime is doing there, with a large part of it choosing to turn a blind eye to the abuses and repression.”
“But let’s not forget the responsibility of those Western countries who have for many years preferred to deal with and do business with Vladimir Putin, knowing very well who he is and what he stands for.”
In 2022, Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested for insisting on speaking out from within Russia. Now that he is banned from traveling, he worries about his right to call others to action. He thought he would feel “more restricted.”
But he will continue to condemn the war in Ukraine.
“Putin cannot be allowed to win this war. Ukraine must win, and Western countries should provide more support so that this goal can be achieved,” he believes.
Historically, he said, “windows of opportunity” for democratic change opened after “catastrophic military defeats.”
As his plane from Russia took off, the FSB guard next to Karamurza told him to look out the window.
“He said this was the last time I would see my country.” The activist laughed. “I said, I’m a historian, so I’m sure I’ll go back to my country.”
“And it will happen much faster than you think.”
