Vladimir Kara-Murza is so dedicated to bringing democracy to Russia that it’s nearly cost him his life on multiple occasions. Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in a Siberian prison colony for disparaging the invasion of Ukraine but was released as part of this summer’s historic prisoner swap that also freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. marine Paul Whelan. Host Krys Boyd talks with him and his wife, human rights activist Evengia Kara-Murza, about their ongoing work to free their homeland from Vladimir Putin’s grip.
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Transcript
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] Vladimir Kara-Murza is utterly convinced that Russia can one day become what he calls a boring democracy. He remembers the hopes surrounding Boris Yeltsin’s presidential election in 1991, when he became the first popularly elected head of state in Russian history. That promise, of course, was fleeting and has all but disappeared in the quarter century of Vladimir Putin’s rule. But it’s impossible for Kara-Murza to shake that vision of what his homeland could be and his decades of dedication to realizing that vision have, on more than one occasion, nearly cost him his life. From Kera in Dallas, this is Think. I’m Krys Boyd.
[00:00:38] In 2015 and again in 2017, Kara-Murza was put into a coma after being poisoned by the Russian government. And in 2023, after speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine, he was sentenced to 25 years in a Siberian prison colony. He was convinced that was where he would die, just as his friend Alexei Navalny had earlier this year. Instead, because of the tireless work of human rights activists, including his wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, was freed in August’s historic prisoner swap, the same one that returned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gersh. Kovic and former U.S. Marine Paul Whalen to the United States. Since then, both Vladimir and Yevgenia have continued their crusade for a democratic Russia. Last week, they were guests at an event at the George W Bush Presidential Center, and they joined me afterward to talk about their efforts. Evgenia. Vladimir, welcome to Think.
Speaker 2 [00:01:31] Thank you so much for having us.
Krys Boyd [00:01:33] Vladimir. Vladimir Putin is afraid of you, which makes you very dangerous in his mind. When did you realize the extent to which you posed a threat to what he wants to do?
Vladimir Kara-Murza [00:01:46] Well, Vladimir Putin is like any other dictator, afraid most of all of his own people. That is why from the very first days of his rule. He started going after independent media that are going after against political opposition. He turned parliament into a rubber stamp. He began falsifying elections and, you know, beating down peaceful opposition demonstrators and so on and so forth. Because Vladimir Putin’s regime is built on lies, propaganda and repression. And so anyone who. Challenges that system by speaking the truth is a danger by definition. And this is why people like Boris Nemtsov, who was the opposition leader in Russia, the most prominent leader of the pro-democracy opposition. This is why people like Alexei Navalny, a very prominent anti-corruption campaigner and opposition politician. Were murdered on the personal orders of Vladimir Putin. This is the only way this man can stay in power because he knows the true worth of this propaganda facade that his regime tries to build it. You know, all Russians support this regime. All Russians support this war in Ukraine. He knows its ally better than anyone. So the only way he can maintain his rule is by eliminating those voices in opposition to those voices of dissent as voices who are speaking the truth, eliminating in a very literal, in a physical sense. And so, you know, I’ve. Lived the life that many other political opponents of the Kremlin have left in the sense of having been on the receiving end of this regime’s campaign of repression. I was twice poisoned by the FSB escort, the same people who poisoned Alexei Navalny. The same people who shadowed Boris Nemtsov before he was murdered. And then after the start of the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. I was arrested for whole basically for just speaking the truth, for quoting this war, a war in today’s Russia that is a criminal offense. And I was given a 25 year prison sentence and a maximum security prison in Siberia. Held in solitary confinement. And up until just a few weeks ago, I was confident that I was going to end my life in that prison, that I was going to die. And everything that’s been happening over these past few weeks. Well, frankly, it still feels as if I’m watching some kind of a movie. It’s completely surreal because this prisoner exchange that happened on the 1st of August of this year, the prisoner exchange that Freed had saved 16 human lives from the hell that is Vladimir Putin’s modern day Little Rock. Was a miracle. That’s the only way I can describe it. But it was in so many ways, so many ways a human made miracle because it was made possible by the relentless advocacy of good people in democratic nations who never stopped speaking out about the political prisoners locked up in Putin’s Russia. And they have shown with their efforts once again. That international public opinion matters, that international public opinion at the end of the day. Is stronger than any dictatorship. Can I help? To me.
Krys Boyd [00:04:58] How did the two of you decide? As a couple? Both of you are committed to human rights, to civil rights, to freedom, to democracy. How did you decide as a couple that this would be something worth making every sacrifice for? You also have three children who are affected by the choices that you make to stand for democracy and freedom.
Evengia Kara-Murza [00:05:19] I do n’t think that it was our decision. It was the decision of Vladimir Putin to rule Russia forever and ever. And it affected our family directly. Because the father of our children, Lattimer, was continuously being persecuted by the regime. And these the Russian authorities tried to deprive my kids of the father. Numerous times. He survived two assassination attacks in the past and then was thrown in prison with a 25 year prison sentence. So this is very personal to me, of course. But I also see the bigger picture. I understand that my little world, my family will never be safe for as long as there is at the regime of Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin for as long as there is this regime. Russia will continue being a threat to itself and all its neighbors and my family. My little world will continue being under threat from it as well. So I don’t think that this was a decision to become a public figure or something like this. This was a decision to stand up to a bully, to a bully who keeps harassing you, to a bully who keeps sort of. Trying to force his rules on you. And you say, no, I’m not okay with this. I am not okay with this. I am an act of my own destiny and I will fight this bully. I will continue fighting him for as long as it takes for my family to live in peace and security. And I think that everyone who has an opportunity to act in this situation in today’s world, in a situation like this, needs to do this. Because if the more people try to do something, even if those acts are small acts, that the more people are involved in this, the sooner this regime will collapse and the sooner we’ll get this. That window of opportunity that Vladimir often talks about to build democracy in our country and make sure that Russia is no longer a threat to itself and everyone around it.
Krys Boyd [00:07:37] The Russian people have a history on multiple occasions of being forced to choose between authoritarian leadership and democracy. And there’s a history of Russian people choosing democracy. And it’s happened very quickly when it’s happened. What do you think are the chances that Russian people will be able to cast aside the authoritarian rule of Putin?
Speaker 2 [00:08:05] Well, this is actually a fundamental issue, because I can speak to this not as a politician, but as a historian that I have my education that actually is exactly as you said, every time. She clearly was not too often in our history, but every time the Russian people had an opportunity to freely choose between dictatorship and democracy, they invariably chose democracy. In 1906, the first ever election for the Russian parliament that was won by the pro-democracy forces, the constitutional Democratic Party that wanted to sort of lead Russia along the way of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy like others in Europe. They won that election overwhelmingly, and supporters of Tsarist autocracy failed to win a single seat. If we go to 1917, the election to the Russian Constituent assembly that was held after the Bolsheviks had already seized power by force and they lost an election to a party that advocated for a parliamentary democratic republic in Russia as opposed to the communist dictatorship. And finally, something that happened within my own lifetime. In June of 1991, the first ever direct election for head of state in a thousand year history of Russia. When Boris Yeltsin, who was a candidate of the pro-democracy opposition, defeated former Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov, was a candidate of the then ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union by 57% to 17. These are facts. These are not myths or stereotypes. And as a historian, I prefer to go by the facts. There’s absolutely no conceivable reason why Russia, in this sense should be any different from any other country. And people in all countries want the same basic things. They want to live with dignity. They want their kids to have good opportunities in life. They want to live in peace and freedom and not be harassed by a repressive state. The so-called argument that has been put forward, you know, by by some in the past that there are countries and peoples and nations that are just not made for democracy. That argument. Well, first of all, that is insulting to any country or any nation. But more importantly, it is simply not true. As President Ronald Reagan said more than four decades ago in his famous Westminster address in 1982. It is cultural condescension or worse to suggest that as a single nation on the face of this earth, I would prefer slavery to freedom in Russia in the sense is absolutely no different. And the one other thing that we know from the modern history of Russia, if you look at the last, you know, century or so. Is that major political changes in our country happen at the snap of a finger. They come suddenly they come swiftly. They come totally unexpectedly. Both the czarist regime at the beginning of the 20th century and the communist regime at the end of the 20th century collapsed in three days. And I mean this in a literal sense, not a figure of speech. And this is exactly how change is going to happen in Russia next time. None of us knows exactly when or how or in what circumstances that change will come. Or we do know that it will be sudden, swift and unexpected. And so what I see is the biggest responsibility now for all of us, both us in Russia and people in the free world is to think forward and to prepare a roadmap. For that post Putin democratic transition in Russia when that window of opportunity comes, because it is our responsibility to seize that window of opportunity and to use it wisely. The mistakes that were made. In the 1990s, the botched democratic transition in Russia in the 1990s. All of that still haunts us today. We are all living with the consequences of those mistakes and those failures today, not just us in Russia or people in Ukraine or living under bombs that are raining on them every single day. And also, frankly, people across Europe and people across the international community, because the way Russia operates is that domestic repression and external aggression are always two sides of the same coin. A government that does not respect the rights and freedoms of its own people is not going to abide by the civilized norms of international behavior. These things go together, and this is exactly what we’ve seen in the 25 years of Vladimir Putin’s rule. He has destroyed the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens, and he has attacked and invaded other countries. So the only way we will ever be able to have long term peace, stability and security on the European continent, the only way Europe can ever become whole, free and at peace with itself is when Russia becomes a democratic country, a country that respect both the rights and freedoms of its own people and the international civilized rules of behavior. It’s not going to happen any other way. And so it is very important that we now think forward to this moment that we now lay down those plans, that we now work on this roadmap for a post Putin transition to democracy in Russia, because it it is in the interests of all of us that next time we get it right.
Krys Boyd [00:13:02] How do you create a road map for people who are frankly traumatized by years of repression, who are currently yourselves as an exception, often afraid to speak the truth that they know.
Evengia Kara-Murza [00:13:16] Well, We need to go back to the 1990s and see what mistakes were made back then. And I think that this conversation about the mistakes of the 1990s and today’s pro-democracy Russian forces is a very important discussion. And I in this regard I completely share Vladimir’s opinion that the biggest mistake I made back then was the inability or unwillingness of then leaders of the new democratic Russia to go ahead with some process of reckoning. Some process of public and official condemnation of the crimes committed during the Soviet times. Vladimir Putin You see, what we are seeing today is the result of over two decades of impunity that Vladimir Putin has enjoyed while committing very similar crimes. There was the second Chechen war where human where war crimes were being committed. There was the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. There was the US, the bombings of the civilian population in Syria. Again, war crimes committed there and it all ended up with a full scale invasion of Ukraine because in Vladimir Putin’s mind, if he is allowed to commit war crimes in Chechnya and in Syria, why not in Ukraine? If he is allowed to annex part of Georgia and Crimea, why cannot he annex the rest of Ukraine? So in his mind, this is very logical and this is the result of that impunity that he has been enjoying while the democratic world was doing business with him. I’m sorry to say, resetting relations with him, building bridges, offering him compromises. There can be no compromises in dealing with a bully. A bully does not understand compromise. To him, a compromise is a sign of weakness of his opponent. And when a bully sees a weakness, he keeps pushing. This is a government of gangsters. This is a mafia state and it needs to be dealt with as mafia state. You know, just like that. So you cannot have a civilized conversation with someone who uses political assassination as a method of dealing with opposition. You cannot have a civilized conversation with someone who is ordering his army to commit war crimes and encourages that. You cannot have a civilized conversation with someone who uses repression against his own population, beating people into pulp in the streets of Russian cities and throwing them in prison with very lengthy prison sentences and portraying these people as spies, traitors, criminals and sometimes insane people. We know that according to human rights groups in today’s Russia, dozens of people are undergoing forced psychiatric treatment because they are being portrayed as insane people for saying, no, we’re not okay with what is happening. And this is the practice that was first introduced by Andropov in 1969, then leader of the KGB, head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, in 1969 as a method of dealing with Soviet dissidents. So it’s back again, used in Russia on a full scale. And this is this is the Russia that. That is an alternative to Vladimir Putin regime. It’s this is what this is this alternative that the regime is trying to annihilate. And if the regime is allowed to do this, to destroy that democratic alternative, than the world will be left to deal with Vladimir Putin and him alone. And this is a very dangerous situation for the entire world, because what happens in Russia affects the entire world as we see it today.
Krys Boyd [00:17:22] Vladimir, As a historian, you were well familiar with what happens in Russian prisons for political dissidents. I wonder if that knowledge helped you survive, if it made things worse going in because you knew exactly what was coming.
Speaker 2 [00:17:41] It is astonishing how much everything today, down to the minutest details is exactly the same as it was described in prison. Memoirs by Vladimir Mayakovsky on the town, Sharansky or Yuri, Your life or other dissidents of that generation we are talking about half a century ago, 1960s and 1970s. And of course, I’d read these books long before I was in prison myself, but I was rereading many of them inside. And I have to say they read completely differently. Once you are basically living in one of those books, that was the oppression that just never left me, that it was living inside one of those books because everything was just so strikingly similar. Everything was the same. But of course, I had the advantage of knowing how that story ended. Right. Because I’m a historian and the favorite toast of Soviet dissidents I greeted each other with back in the day, back in the 60s and 70s and 80s was to the success of a hopeless cause. Well, as we now know very well, the cause of fighting the Soviet communism regime wasn’t as hopeless as it may have seemed at the time. And I would say that my education as a historian perhaps never came as useful to me throughout my life as I did when I was in prison, because we know how this will end. We just don’t know the precise timing, but we know how this will end because history is, well, history as a science in the same way that, you know, mathematics of physics or chemistry, except there is more about numbers in equations and in history, it’s more about trends and, and the models and the laws of historical development. And while the arc. The proverbial arc may not bend as fast as we’d like. It unquestionably bends towards liberty. There is absolutely no doubt about this. If we look at the way the world has been developing, if you look at the map of Europe, let’s say three and a half decades ago, that’s nothing by historical standards. Half of Europe was living under dictatorial authoritarian regimes. If we look at the map of Europe today, we’ll see only two dictatorships left. That’s Putin’s Russia and Lukashenko’s Belarus. And I have no doubt that they will come in in a very foreseeable future when when there are no more dictatorial regimes on that map at all. And so it really helped to know the ending of that story. And I think it is very important that we do learn those lessons from the past. And what Evgenia was just speaking about, the. The most important missed opportunity in the 90s was precisely the lack of that public reflection on the crimes of the Soviet totalitarian regime. That process is absolutely essential for any society that has suffered the trauma of totalitarianism for any society that has been subject to these crimes. And these crimes, in many cases, have been perpetrated on behalf of the society. This is a very important point, too, and this is why, if we look at every country in the 20th century that has successfully transition from dictatorship to democracy, from from South Africa after apartheid in Argentina, after its military dictatorship to Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic states, after communism, in Germany, after Nazism, we will see that in each of these cases in different shapes, different formats. But in essence, in each of these cases, there was a process of a public reflection of a public accounting of these crimes that had been committed with a goal of ensuring that these crimes can never be committed again. Because if. The evil is not publicly reflected on publicly accounted for and publicly condemned. It will come back, which is what we’re seeing in Russia today. And so next time there’s that window of opportunity for change in Russia, there will need to be a full opening of the archives. There will need to be a process of accountability for those people who are committing these crimes and who have committed these crimes previously. There will need to be some kind of a process of illustrations whereby people who are responsible for these crimes are never again allowed to come anywhere near positions of power. And needless to say, the structures, the state institutions, beginning with the KGB and our FSB that were responsible for these crimes, must never again have any place in a future democratic Russia. And so these lessons from the Soviet dissident movement to me are very important and very important. And to me, frankly, the lesson from the history of the Soviet dissident movement, and I’ve studied it extensively and I had the privilege of knowing many of these people personally. And I made a documentary about 20 years ago. It’s called They Chose Freedom. It’s a documentary on the history of the Soviet dissident movement. And to me, this is frankly one of the most optimistic lessons from the history of mankind, because. We saw that even a small or a relatively small group of people. We’re willing to stand up for their beliefs and defend them in the face of this overwhelming repressive machine. At the end of the day, more powerful than anything these totalitarian dictatorships can offer in response. And we saw that it was. The freedom of. This relatively small number of people at the end of the day led the way for the collapse of the communist dictatorship in our country. And I have absolutely no doubt that Russia will be a free country once again. It’s only a question of time, but it is also a question of making sure that we learn those lessons from the past and that we never repeat those mistakes the next time. Because the next time that window of opportunity comes up, we have to get it right.
Krys Boyd [00:23:24] Portions of Alexei Navalny in his prison diaries have been published, and people are reading them with great interest and concern. One thing that every reader seems to come away with is the observation that there’s a significant amount of humor in the way that he describes his experiences there. There’s nothing funny about what happened to him about what happened to you, Vladimir. But I wonder if as individuals and as a couple humor has been part of the toolkit for surviving what you’ve been through.
Evengia Kara-Murza [00:23:57] Absolutely. This is you cannot. You cannot go through hell without trying to make it lighter because otherwise he would just collapse. And humor does help. And I was every time we corresponded with Vladimir and I would receive his letters from from prison, sent through the prison mail system, I was always it was always heartening to me to see that he continued to joke in these letters because I could say that, yeah, he’s he’s okay.
Krys Boyd [00:24:38] He’s still him.
Evengia Kara-Murza [00:24:39] It’s still. Yes, Vladimir is still himself that they no matter how much they tried to. Break him. They’re not successful. They never will be because he will stay true to his nature. And I could see that through through those jokes that he would send me jokes about the situation where nothing was really funny if you looked deep down. And realize what he was joking about. But yeah, this is this is a means for survival. But, you know, I like this quote from Winston Churchill who said, if you’re going through hell, keep going. You cannot afford to stop and look around and try to analyze the situation while you are in it. You have to continue pushing forward, and I am very grateful that I am sharing my life with such a morally strong person, sort of, you know, a man of integrity. And it’s I am lucky, blessed in in. To have Vladimir as a partner. But, of course, it doesn’t always come easy to us as a family. On the one hand, you have a person who. Who always acts on his principles. Who for whom decisions. Come easy because values are clear. But on the other hand, of course, it affects everyone and it affects our kids. But in my opinion, we can only teach our kids through our own example. And it is obvious that we’re not going to be able to leave our kids a perfect world. There’s still going to be a lot of imperfections in this world, no matter how hard we try to make it better for them. It’s still not going to be perfect. But what we can teach them is to fight for what they believe in is to become warriors themselves. We can teach them to stand up to bullies with courage and to always push forward. When you know that you are fighting for what is right and you can only do this through your own example, you can all just give your kids lectures about how important the fight for human rights is. You have to get involved, get your hands dirty, basically, and you have to you have to show them how this fight works. And this is exactly what Vladimir has been doing for so many years. He’s been teaching our kids. He’s being sort of leading them by his own example. So, yes, I know that they’ve been terrified for his life. They twice saw him in a coma with a multiple organ failure. They saw him relearning how to walk and hold a spoon. And that was terrifying, I am sure. And that was heartbreaking. I am absolutely convinced it was. And then they saw their father thrown in prison with an Absolutely. Astonishing, absolutely atrocious sentence. And 25 years for speaking the truth. The oldest is 18 years old. What is 25 years to her? It’s like so much more than her entire life. So I am so yes, I have been terrified for his life. But at the same time, that proud of him. I’m sure they’re proud of him because they know that he is standing for what is right and it is only people. Like him, like so many of my colleagues who choose to step over their fear. And continues the fight for what is right. It is only those people who actually take the world forward, who bring change to this world. Because, you know, cynical people or who don’t believe in anything good are people, pessimistic people who would prefer to sit on their couches and talk about how the world is imperfect and will always be. We’ll never change that world for the better. It is those who decide to stand up and do something about it who do?
Speaker 2 [00:29:09] Humor is an absolutely indispensable self-defense mechanism in prison. You cannot survive without it. And this has been the lesson of many, many generations of prisoners of our love. Shalom affair. Great writer, chronicler of the Soviet Gulak himself a long time political prisoner, once wrote that. As long as the prisoner maintains his irony, he remains a human being. And this is this is a fundamental point because when this system what she behind bars for peacefully voicing your opinions for having a view that happens to differ from the views of the government. Their goal. The system’s goal is not just to. To isolate you, to imprison you, to, you know, forbid you from speaking to your family, from locking you up in that tiny cell in the middle of nowhere.
Krys Boyd [00:29:58] All of which they did.
Speaker 2 [00:29:59] All of which, of course they did. With the additional goal. And in many ways, the main goal is to break you as a person, to make sure you stop being you. To make sure you succumb, you will silent. You become. Depressed and hopeless and essentially nonexistent as an individual. And that’s a luxury we’re not going to give them.
Krys Boyd [00:30:21] How much did you know, Eugenia, about the ongoing effort to include Vladimir in this group of wrongfully imprisoned people who were released in that prisoner exchange?
Evengia Kara-Murza [00:30:35] There were many human rights organizations, many of our allies, who have been advocating for that, and not just for Vladimir, but for other Russian political prisoners as well.
Krys Boyd [00:30:46] There are many others who remain.
Evengia Kara-Murza [00:30:49] Yes, absolutely. And it is it has been very important to me since the day Vladimir got imprisoned. And I decided that I needed to step up and continue his work to advocate not just for Vladimir, but for other political prisoners as well, because this is the way Vladimir had been doing it before his imprisonment. And that and these are the people I am proud to call my compatriots, these people who risked their freedoms to stand up and say no are the faces of that Russia that I want to see and that I love. And so to me, it was very important to show to them, to show these faces, to the world, to tell these stories, to the world, to it was important to me that the world knew their names. And this is how I’ve worked for two and a half years. Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian media, made a list of political prisoners with serious medical conditions. That list included many names, and unfortunately, only two people from that list ended up in the exchange. And that was Alexandra’s coach, Elanco Sasha Scooter Longo, an artist from St Petersburg who was imprisoned and sentenced to many years for replacing price tags at a local supermarket with anti-war messages. And there was Vladimir, who, following his two assassination attacks, developed polyneuropathy, a serious medical condition that could lead to paralysis. So even under Russian law, someone suffering from polyneuropathy cannot be kept behind bars. Not only was Weiner kept behind bars, but he was also kept in solitary confinement in a strict regime prison colony with no access to any medical help and no possibilities to exercise to keep these symptoms from developing. And his symptoms did develop. They. Now, both of his sides are affected. Only his left foot and left hand were affected before the imprisonment. Now, both of his feet are affected by following up with these symptoms. But many people from that list continue in being behind bars in Russia. And this is Alexei. You got enough municipal deputy who ended up in prison, was sentenced to seven years for calling for a minute of silence. Or Ukrainian children killed by Russian bombs. He also said that it would be unethical to hold children’s recitals while kids in Ukraine were being killed on a daily basis. He went to prison for that. He is serving his prison sentence with one long missing. And his condition behind bars is deteriorating. It was also Maria Ponomarenko Saberi, a journalist who got imprisoned for making posts on social media, talking about war crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine. Again, several years of imprisonment. And she also was went through punitive psychiatry, forceful psychiatric evaluation, during which she was injected with unknown substances. And she couldn’t recollect three whole days of her stay at that hospital after she was transferred back to prison. It is also you go to Malaysia and the 17 year old boy who got sentenced to six years for a failed attempt to set a conscription center on fire in protest against the war. There were no victims. There were no damage done. He’s serving a six year prison sentence for that. It is also Zainab Ahmed Mousavi, who was recently transferred to a hospital to undergo emergency medical treatment because her her health is failing. And there are other people on that list. And for these people, it is a matter of life, life or death. And this is why this advocacy work on behalf of Russian political prisoners has to continue as our work to liberate Ukraine, but is in civilian hostages continues. We have a specific project within the Free Russia Foundation that depends on the work of Russian lawyers on the ground who locate these P.O.W.s and civilian hostages in the Russian penitentiary system so that they can be added to the exchange lists. So all of these people who are behind bars in the Russian penitentiary system being tortured daily, being deprived of medical assistance and contact with their loved ones, they need to be liberated one way or another. And we have to continue fighting for that.
Krys Boyd [00:35:59] Vladimir, you spoke about governments that blithely have done business with the Putin regime based on trade and policy and other things. Presumably most of the people listening to this conversation are not members of governments. They’re ordinary people who care but wonder what they can do.
Speaker 2 [00:36:21] Well, first of all, to address the history, it is absolutely true that in the 25 years, a quarter century, the Vladimir Putin has been in power. So many Western democratic governments. Have chosen to turn a blind eye on all the authoritarian abuses going on in Russia. And for so many years, Western leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. Chose to deal with Putin, conduct business as usual with Putin, trade with him. Invite him for, you know, summit meetings and. Offer him red carpet treatment and so on and so forth. All the while, he was destroying the basic rights and freedoms and the basic tenets of democracy in Russia and increasingly engaging in aggressive behavior towards others. And so. Western governments do bear a significant part of responsibility alongside with a large part of Russian society that also for many, many years chose to turn a blind eye on these authoritarian abuses of Vladimir Putin’s regime for allowing. The Putin dictatorship to grow into the monster that it has become today. Launching and conducting the largest scale military conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War. This is what the appeasement of dictators always leads to. And this is something that history has shown us so many times before, but it has shown as this, again, with a history of Vladimir Putin himself. To your question about. What Western countries can do today. I would say three. Sort of large scale things and in one very practical. In terms of the large scale possibilities. Number one, continue supporting Ukraine. That is very important. By the way, Putin’s regime must not be allowed to win this war. But only because this war is morally unjustified, not only because this war is criminal, not only because this war is a war of aggression. All of that would be enough as reasons why he should lose it. But he should also lose it. Because if he doesn’t, if he’s allowed a face saving exit from this war, then in a year, 18 months from now, we will be talking about something else. A new invasion, a new aggression, a new war. This is what this man has been doing for a quarter of a century. He’s not going to change. Every year that Vladimir Putin has been in power, he brought with him suffering and pain and war and blood. And he will not stop until he stopped. So this is why. Ukraine needs to be supported. I understand the fatigue. I understand the frustration of many people to this war’s has been dragging on for almost three years. But if he’s allowed a face saving exit from this war and we’re only pushing down this problem for a few months down the line and it’ll be something even worse, an even larger scale. Second, it’s very important, in my view. For Western countries, for Western governments, but also for Western civil societies to continue communicating with the people of Russia over the heads of the Putin regime, over the heads of the Putin propaganda, because contrary to what the Kremlin propaganda tries to pretend. Not all Russians support this regime will support the war. There are millions of people inside Russia today who have a very different vision for our country, who want Russia to become a normal, peaceful, boring democracy. And these Russians are a necessary component of any future solution of any strategic end point to this. This is not, as the Kremlin propaganda tries to present it, a conflict between, quote unquote, the collective West and Russia. No. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a conflict between civilization and barbarism. This is a conflict between freedom and tyranny. And there are millions of people in Russia, millions of Russians who are allies of the free world in this fight. And instead of sort of sending messages, as we sometimes unfortunately hear, that, you know, all of these Russians, they all support Putin, they’ll support the war, the imperialists and whatever else, You know, some some people say nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, they should be clear messaging from the West to those people in Russia who believe in a democratic future for a country that the free world hears them, that the free world knows that they are there, and that there will be a place for that future post Putin Democratic Russia in a civilized world, that life for Russians will be better without Putin than it is today. That’s a very important thing that Western countries should be doing. And finally, sort of to echo what we had already discussed and during this conversation, because change in Russia usually happens very quickly and very suddenly, as it did in 1917 or in 1991. Nobody has time to prepare. And this is the reason of the fact that so many mistakes have been made. The next time change comes to Russia once again, there will not be time to prepare. The preparation time is now. Now is the time for homework. And so just as we in Russia have to work on that roadmap for a post Putin transition that we discussed in terms of the public reckoning and public accountability for the crimes and so on. It is no less important that Western countries work on their own road map on how to help and support that future transition to democracy in Russia after Putin and how to help swiftly, because that window of opportunity, by definition, will be very short. How to swiftly reintegrate that new post Putin, Democratic Russia back into the civilized world, back into Europe, back into what we call the international rules based community. Because once again, the only way we can ever have lasting peace, stability and security on the European continent is with a democratic Russia. And that road map needs to be there. That homework needs to be done. And finally, something that may seem small, but I can’t emphasize enough just how important that is. You know, when I was sitting in that solitary confinement cell in a maximum security prison in Siberia. One of the few things that helped me. To keep going to survive and frankly, not to lose my sanity was the letters I was receiving every day from all over Russia and from all over the world, from from people who were not indifferent, from people who cared, from people who wanted to express and convey their support in a solidarity. Because one of the things that this regime wants to make political prisoners feel is that it wants them to feel forgotten and isolated and alone, as if this was all for nothing. And only somebody who’s been in this situation can appreciate how much hope and how much warmth and how much light there is in that small sheet of paper that the prison guards hand you through the feeding slot in your cell door at 4 p.m. every day. And so I would urge I would ask everyone who is listening, please take some time out of your busy schedules to write to political prisoners.
Krys Boyd [00:43:24] Do you believe you’ll survive to see the Russia that you believe can happen can exist?
Speaker 2 [00:43:31] Now I do. Up until a few weeks ago, I was confident that I was going to die in that Siberian prison. But now that I’m here, I have full intention of living to see that day. When my country becomes a democracy, when I will be able and it will be the privilege and the honor of my life to serve my country in whatever capacity I can to help along that transition to democracy. And when, you know, when our plane was taking off from Moscow airport on the day of the prisoner exchange on the 1st of August. The FSB convoy officer I was sitting next to me turned to be pointed in the in the window of the plane and said, Look out there. This is the last time you’re seeing your motherland. And I turned to him and I just laughed in his face and I said, Look, man, I’m a historian. I not only think I don’t only believe, I know that I’ll be back in Russia. That is going to happen much sooner than you can ever imagine.
Krys Boyd [00:44:29] Vladimir Yevgenia, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 [00:44:32] Thank you for having us.
Krys Boyd [00:44:33] Vladimir Kara-Murza served more than a year in a Russian prison colony for speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine. He was released in August as part of a prisoner swap. His wife, Yevgenia, is a human rights activist. Think is distributed by PR X, the public radio exchange. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and listen to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Kerry. Think our website is thinking broad and you can find out about upcoming shows there and sign up for our free weekly newsletter. Again, I’m Krys Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
