\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI was absolutely certain I would die in Putin\u2019s prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost the first thing Vladimir Kara-Murza tells me after his surprise release in the biggest prisoner exchange since the Cold War.<\/p>\n
The Russian opposition politician is painfully thin \u2013 from stress, he says. He\u2019s also still reeling from his abrupt transfer from a high security jail in Siberia into forced exile, after more than two years behind bars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s surreal, like I\u2019m watching a film,\u201d he describes the feeling. \u201cBut it\u2019s a good film,\u201d in which he\u2019s finally been reunited with the family he hasn\u2019t seen since his arrest in Moscow in April 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
His youngest son has been following him everywhere, anxious not to let him out of his sight.<\/p>\n
Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is also a British citizen, was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years for his fierce and persistent condemnation of Vladimir Putin and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
He has spent the past 11 months straight in solitary confinement, made to fold away his bed each morning at 05:00 and only given paper and pen for an hour or so each day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so easy to lose your mind. You lose sense of time, space. Everything really,\u201d he reveals, in one of his first long interviews since release. \u201cYou do nothing, speak to no one, go nowhere. Day after day after day.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was denied phone calls home, only allowed to speak to his children twice in over two years.<\/p>\n
The added punishment was even tougher, physically.<\/p>\n
Almost a decade ago, Vladimir Kara-Murza nearly died from an unknown toxin and still suffers from after-effects, including nerve damage. In September, he now reveals, a prison doctor gave him “a year, 18 months at best” to live, if he stayed behind bars.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter two FSB poisonings, I don\u2019t exactly have the right state of health for a strict regime prison,\u201d he explains, with a wry smile.<\/p>\n
Last week, Kara-Murza was one of eight Russian dissidents who went missing from their prisons.<\/p>\n
As lawyers and relatives sounded the alarm, rumours of a looming swap began to swirl. The prisoners themselves had no idea.<\/p>\n
Instead, when guards burst into Kara-Murza\u2019s cell in Omsk he thought he would be \u201cled out to be shot\u201d, he recalls. \u201cI actually thought they were going to execute me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019d recently been instructed to sign a request for a presidential pardon but refused to beg for mercy from Vladimir Putin, who he denounces as \u201ca dictator, usurper and a murderer\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kara-Murza was transferred to Moscow and the notorious Lefortovo FSB jail. Five days later he was led out to board a bus and saw the other dissidents inside, each one with an FSB guard in a balaclava.<\/p>\n
Another guard then took the bus microphone and announced they were being taken for a prisoner swap, no details.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo-one asked our consent,\u201d Kara-Murza says. \u201cWe were loaded onto a plane like cattle and flown out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The activist landed in Germany in the only civilian clothes he owned: black long-johns and T-shirt, and the flip flops he used for the prison shower.<\/p>\n
The Russian dissidents were part of a “bundle” of political prisoners released, along with high-profile US nationals like the journalist Evan Gershkovich.<\/p>\n
Three were former activists from the team of Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who died suddenly in prison earlier this year. Originally, Navalny was to be part of the complex swap.<\/p>\n
In return for the dissidents, Russia got a handful of spies and criminals including the key prize sought by Vladimir Putin: an FSB hitman known as Vadim Krasikov who\u2019d murdered in broad daylight in a Berlin park.<\/p>\n
The judge sentencing him to life in prison had called the killing an act of “state terrorism”.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo everyone who criticises this [swap], I would respectfully urge them not to think of prisoner exchanges but of saving lives,\u201d Kara-Murza argues, in response to the controversy over freeing Krasikov.<\/p>\n
The killer was welcomed home to a red carpet and a hug from Putin himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAren\u2019t 16 lives worth releasing one murderer?\u201d<\/p>\n
For a long time, Germany wasn\u2019t sure. The delay, Kara-Murza argues, may be what cost Alexei Navalny his life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The joy of the Kara-Murzas\u2019 reunion is marred by thoughts of the Russian detainees who were not released.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so happy and overwhelmed to see these people free, but also very sad so many people were left behind,\u201d his wife Evgenia tells me. \u201cI feel guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Memorial human rights organisation lists hundreds of political prisoners and she had been campaigning hard for a priority group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people with serious medical conditions, like Alexei Gorinov who\u2019s missing part of his lung, who don\u2019t have a lot of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her husband talks of those “still languishing in Putin\u2019s Gulag” and the hope of further exchanges.<\/p>\n
He had only been free himself for five minutes, when he strayed into controversy.<\/p>\n
In statements made soon after landing in Germany, Vladimir Kara-Murza argued that sanctions in relation to the Ukraine war should be better targeted. <\/p>\n
There was immediate uproar from Ukrainians who claimed his priority on walking free was to soften Russia\u2019s punishment for waging war.<\/p>\n
Kara-Murza calls it calibration.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need more information,\u201d he admits. \u201cI realise that February 2022 changed a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he wants to know why a Russian human rights lawyer can\u2019t travel to the Baltic states for a conference, when a Russian missile containing a Western-made chip can slam into a residential building in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe responsibility for what the Putin regime is doing there is shared by Russian society, a large part of which chose to close their eyes to the abuses and repression,\u201d he argues.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut let\u2019s not forget the responsibility of those Western countries who for years preferred to deal with Vladimir Putin and do business, knowing full well who he was and what he represented.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2022, Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested because he insisted on being inside Russia and speaking out. Now he\u2019s barred from travelling, he worries about his right to call others there to action. He thinks he\u2019ll feel “more constrained”.<\/p>\n
But he will continue condemning the war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutin can\u2019t be allowed to win this war. Ukraine must win, and there should be more support from Western countries so that happens,\u201d he argues.<\/p>\n
Historically, he says, “windows of opportunity” for democratic change open after “disastrous military defeat”.<\/p>\n
When his plane out of Russia was taking off, the FSB guard next to Kara-Murza told him to look out of the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said it was the last time I was seeing my motherland.\u201d The activist laughed. \u201cI said, I\u2019m a historian, so I am sure I will be back in my country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it will be much quicker than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n