Washington D.C. – CNN, August 13, 2024
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, has described the psychological torture he endured during 11 months in solitary confinement, saying he thought he would die in a Siberian cell.
Kara-Murza spoke to CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday for the first time on US television since he was released on August 1 in the largest prisoner exchange between the US and Russia since the Cold War.
The British-Russian national was freed at the same time as Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, who were reunited with their families in emotional scenes at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland earlier this month.
“Just a little over two weeks ago, I was still sitting in my solitary confinement cell in a harsh regime prison colony in Siberia. And I was certain that I was going to end my life in the prison,” Kara-Murza said. “And here I am now sitting with you in a studio in New York next to my wife … It feels as if I’m watching some sort of film, it’s a really good film, but it still feels surreal.”
Since the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison in February, Kara-Murza has been the most prominent opposition figure persecuted by the Kremlin.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason for speaking out against Putin’s war in Ukraine and had spent two and a half years imprisoned in Russia. During that time, Kara-Murza was held in solitary confinement for 11 months and locked up in 13 different penitentiaries, including some of the most notorious prison colonies in the country.
He was allowed to speak on the phone with his wife only once and his three children just twice, he said.
Speaking to Erin Burnett alongside her husband, Evgenia Kara-Murza – who tirelessly lobbied for his release – said she is relieved that she no longer has “this nagging fear in the back of my mind at all times of the day that Vladimir can be killed at any moment.”
