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Russia on Monday sentenced Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison for treason, the harshest sentence yet for an opponent of his war in Ukraine and the latest example of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.
Here are four important things to know about Kara-Murza, a Washington Post Opinions contributor who has described his arrest as “the price for speaking up in Russia today.”
Who is Vladimir Kara-Murza?
Kara-Murza, 41, is a longtime opposition politician, historian and activist who has written opinion pieces for The Post about life in Russia in recent years. He criticized Putin and the Russian leader’s decision to invade Ukraine. In January, Kara-Murza wrote that “Russians live in a frightening, distorted reality,” one of several opinion pieces written from his prison cell.
Kara-Murza has been detained in Moscow since his arrest in April 2022. His trial, he said, effectively reversed the Stalinist political repression of the 1930s.
Although Kara-Murza holds British and Russian passports, he chose not to accept full-time life in the West. He has lived in Russia and has insisted that he could only stand up for citizens’ rights and freedoms if he faced the same hardships they face. He is one of the few Kremlin critics still living on Russian soil amid mounting threats against those who speak out against the government, The Post reported. Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, and their three children reside in the United States.
Kara-Murza was deputy leader of the Russian opposition group People’s Freedom Party from 2015 to 2016. He was a longtime associate of Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader who was assassinated outside the Kremlin in 2015.
According to his wife, Kara-Murza was first poisoned in 2015. She wrote about the near-fatal attack in an op-ed for The Post last year, adding that he was poisoned a second time in 2017. Kara-Murza said both poisonings were orchestrated by the Kremlin. Russia denied involvement in the attacks, which left him in a coma on both occasions.
Russia sentences Kara-Murza, Putin critic and Post worker, to 25 years
Why was Kara-Murza arrested?
Kara-Murza was arrested last April on charges of spreading false information. Authorities cited a speech he delivered to Arizona lawmakers condemning Russian military action in Ukraine.
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin has made it clear that criticism of his “special military operation” will not be tolerated. Russian war critics and dissidents were punished with arrests, fines and prison terms.
Many journalists have fled the country, and media organizations have been forced to shut down since Putin signed a law against “fake” news following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, ending years of repression, The Post reported last year.
Washington Post staffer arrested in Moscow after he criticized Putin
Kara-Murza’s sentencing on Monday drew strong condemnation from Western governments, with the United States and Britain calling for his immediate release. The US State Department has called the allegations false and imposed sanctions on Russian officials involved in the case for “gross violations of human rights”.
Since his arrest, those closest to Kara-Murza have expressed concern for his health. His lawyers say he has lost almost 50 pounds in the last year and may not be well enough to survive 25 years behind bars.
What happens after Kara-Murza’s conviction?
In Russia’s highly politicized legal system, the court’s verdict has never been in doubt. The prosecutor had asked for the maximum sentence of 25 years and Kara-Murza declined to seek an acquittal.
Maria Eismont, one of Kara-Murza’s lawyers, said they plan to appeal the verdict, according to Portal.
What else you should know about Kara-Murza’s education, writing, and activism
Kara Murza holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in history from the University of Cambridge, UK. Members of the university’s history faculty expressed their “solidarity” with Kara-Murza and their “dismay at the cruel sentence to 25 years in prison” in a statement Monday.
Kara-Murza has said his Cambridge education served him well in his career as a journalist. In a letter to Novaya Gazeta Europe, he wrote that as a student he specialized in “the history of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union” and wrote his thesis on “the first (pre-revolutionary) State Duma”.
During her time at Cambridge, Kara-Murza began writing articles for Russian and British news outlets. In 2004, he moved to Washington, DC to become the bureau chief of RTVi, or Russian Television International, a news site aimed at Russians living outside of their country, according to the Library of Congress.
Since then, he has had a long media career, contributing to The Post and other media outlets, and hosting a weekly radio show on Echo of Moscow. He has made three documentaries about political dissent in the Soviet Union and Russia, including a documentary about Nemtsov, the Kremlin critic and longtime colleague. Kara-Murza is the author of the book Reform or Revolution: The Search for Responsible Government in the First Russian State Duma.
Kara Murza has received several awards for his work and activism, including the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience and the Magnitsky Human Rights Prize.
Robyn Dixon contributed to this report.
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