Jailed Kremlin critic Kara-Murza’s wife urges prisoner swaps

Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia said his health was deteriorating in jail – Copyright AFP Daniel LEAL

Nina LARSON

The wife of jailed and ailing Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza on Monday said she was in favour of prisoner exchanges to rescue him and other political detainees in Russia. 

Following the death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison colony last month, his team revealed that a deal to free him as part of a prisoner swap had been “at the final stage” before he died. 

Asked whether similar discussions were under way for her husband, Evgenia Kara-Murza told reporters in Geneva that she was “not aware of any active negotiations”. 

“But I know that this was a method of liberating some dissidents in the Soviet times, and I believe that if that was possible in the Soviet times during the Cold War… it is definitely possible today,” she said.

She acknowledged that due to very limited communication with her husband, she did not know if he would agree to leave if the opportunity presented itself. 

“But I believe that in those cases where human lives are at stake, and there is a number of such cases in Russia today… I believe that every method should be used to save these people’s lives,” she said.

– Punishment cell –

Navalny’s death has raised fears for remaining Kremlin critics imprisoned in Russia, of whom Kara-Murza is perhaps the most prominent. 

He was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year — the longest known sentence of all of President Vladimir Putin’s jailed critics.

He was charged with “treason” after using a speech in the United States to say Russia had committed “war crimes” against Ukraine.

The dual Russian-British citizen suffers from serious health problems, which his wife and lawyers say were due to two poisoning attempts orchestrated by Russia’s FSB security service in 2015 and 2017. 

Evgenia Kara-Murza said the poisoning attempts had brought on a serious condition called polyneuropathy, which can lead to paralysis.

It figures on the list of medical conditions that should prevent incarceration under Russian law, she said. 

“But of course, Vladimir is not only incarcerated,” she said.

“He is held in a very strict regime of a punishment cell. For over half a year now, he has not received any medical treatment and obviously his health is deteriorating there.”

– ‘No appeasement’ –

Moscow’s crackdown on critics has dramatically worsened since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Russia currently counting nearly 700 political prisoners, according to Nobel Prize-winning rights group Memorial. 

The intensifying crackdown shows that “appeasement of dictators does not work”, Evgenia Kara-Murza said. 

“There can be no appeasement of Vladimir Putin anymore, because appeasement will lead to more warmongering and to more repression,” she said. 

Following the deadly Moscow concert hall attack on Friday, there is fear the situation will deteriorate further. 

Evgenia Kara-Murza cautioned that the attack, like previous ones, could be used by the Kremlin as an excuse “to further toughen its grip on power, to further repress society, and to start new aggressions against our neighbours”.  

Rights defenders also voiced alarm that four alleged perpetrators of the attack were brought to court showing signs of torture. 

The men had bruised and swollen faces, and Violetta Fitsner, a lawyer with Memorial, pointed out that one still had a torn plastic bag hanging around his neck.

“It’s obvious he was tortured,” she told reporters, saying it was “very troubling” that the authorities so unabashedly “showed that they did it and that they can do it”.

“It’s a signal,” Memorial co-chair Sergei Davidis agreed, suggesting the authorities were now so sure of their grip on the population that they determined “there is no reason to conceal their methods”.

“They just were honest this time, because they decided that it was possible.”